


Between You and the World

by Desiderii



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Magic, Bruce Has Issues, First Kiss, M/M, Magical High School AU, Pepper-in-charge, Protective Steve, Teen Romance, Tony Stark Has A Heart, high school dance, winter holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 12:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1119861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desiderii/pseuds/Desiderii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Magical High School AU starring the Avengers with Steve and Tony front and center. </p><p>Steve is the newest transfer to Triskelion, a magnet school for the unlocked. His first two weeks are so far removed from what he thought he was getting into, but nobody seems to believe that he's not going to give up quite so easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Runes and Channeling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [howling_commandos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/howling_commandos/gifts).



> For my StonySecretSanta recipient! I'm so sorry I left posting until the very last day, but this one kind of got away from me. You said you like HS AU and angst and so that's what I tried to offer. Happy New Year!

Steve watched the dark haired junior drool onto his desktop and marveled that no-one seemed to care. At the beginning of class, when everyone had filed in to find the boy already there, Dr. Yinsen had waved everyone silent and directed them to their seats. The others hadn’t batted an eye. 

The blonde jock with the mohawk whose desk the boy had claimed had just shrugged and dragged the chair from behind the teacher’s desk to plop herself down with notebook and pencil. Class had continued as usual, interrupted only by snores that had Steve dying a little inside from second-hand embarrassment that everyone else didn’t seem to feel. 

That this was probably the least weird occurrence today did not bode well for him fitting in at the Triskelion, especially when the mohawked blonde girl in the rolling chair kicked up her heels onto the nearest desk and began a rapid-fire back and forth with Dr. Yinsen about the advanced practical applications of channeling. Steve was fuzzy about what channeling even _was_ , still. His notebook remained resolutely blank despite Dr. Yinsen’s diagrams scrawled across the chalkboard. The longer the blonde in the combat boots argued with the teacher, the more lost Steve became. The only good bit about the class was the redhead sitting next to him who kept throwing him sympathetic looks. He appreciated the sympathy even if pride would never let him show it. 

Eventually, he finished his silly gesture sketch of the sleeping boy and threw his pencil down. Nobody was learning anything today anyhow. Once the blonde girl had started up, the rest of the class had checked out, leaning across aisle to chat with each other in low tones.

As soon as she saw him give up, the redhead caught his eye and tipped her head toward the front of the room. Steve leaned in to hear her as she said, “Carol will monopolize Dr. Yinsen the whole period. No matter how he tries to shut her down, he can’t resist a good question, and her list of ‘good questions’ is ten miles long. Pepper.” She stuck out her hand and gave him an anchorwoman smile. 

Steve blinked at her and shook her hand, faintly bemused. Funnily enough, ‘bemused’ wasn’t a lot different from ‘overwhelmed’. The front of the room was occupied by a small handful of students taking rapid notes. Dr. Yinsen stood at the chalkboard now covered with equations filled with runic constants that Steve had only just learned the existence of that morning. 

“I’m Steve. Pepper’s your name?” he asked. 

“Nickname.” She reached across to his desk and tapped her pen on his drawing. “He’s Tony.” 

Steve refused to blush, mostly because he’d been daydreaming when he was drawing and questioning his subconscious too early always led to trouble. “Tony,” he said, “He just… slept right into our class?” He looked at Pepper in askance. “What is he even doing here?”

“He’s a spoiled asshole.” Pepper sounded fond. “Polarizing is putting it mildly, but Yinsen likes him. And he won’t sleep otherwise, so we’re kind of used to it. You will be too, soon enough.”

Her response did not reassure him. Steve dragged his hands down across his face and let out a noisy breath. He pulled at his cheeks and rolled his eyes ceilingward. “This place just gets weirder and weirder.” He dropped his hands to find Pepper watching him with sympathy. “I’m thinking I might have made a mistake.” 

With a brief moment of hesitation, Pepper darted her eyes towards the front of the room and then toward him to say, “You were unlocked.” He nodded in confirmation. She caught herself nodding along, confirming her deductions, and put out a hand to light her fingers briefly on his arm. “Nobody transfers to Triskelion mid-year unless they are. I’m so sorry. I really am.” 

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he told her, smiling a little. It was nice to meet someone friendly; he hadn’t held out much hope of that on his first day. “My own damned fault.” 

Pepper pulled back, confusion written across her features, and tilted her head. “Your fault?” 

“Volunteered for the Stark program.” 

Surprising him and everyone else in the classroom, Pepper swore. Very, very loudly. 

The sleeping boy whose name was apparently Tony snorted and raised his head to peer blearily at his surroundings. Heads turned, conversations ground to a halt, and a dozen pairs of eyes swiveled to stare at Pepper - and, by proxy, Steve. 

Steve scratched his chin and offered their audience a smile.

Dr. Yinsen set down his chalk. In a tone of polite curiosity with a hint of this-better-be-good, he asked, “Something to share with the class, Ms. Potts?”

“No, sir,” Pepper replied. “Sorry, sir.” 

“Need I remind you that such language is not allowed in my classroom?” 

Straight-backed with shoulders squared, Pepper lifted her chin, her expression a neutral mask. All of the animation that she’d possessed while talking to him had fled somewhere behind a wall of practiced professionalism. It aged her straight past the senior she was and into somewhere between ‘don’t fuck with me’ and her late twenties. “It won’t happen again.” 

Dr. Yinsen studied Pepper for a long moment. The rest of the class remained hushed. Whether the quiet stemmed from morbid fascination or the instinct to freeze in the presence of a predator, Steve couldn’t quite tell. Either way, the Triskelion’s student body had a baffling relationship with its authority figures. Coming from Brooklyn to here was like being thrown into a bizarro world, and not in the least because of the way the pecking order among the other students was based on some metric he had yet to figure out. It certainly wasn’t age or wealth or anything he was familiar with. 

“I see,” Dr. Yinsen said, breaking eye contact with her to sweep his gaze across the rest of the class. “I’m very sorry, I seem to have been neglecting the curricula I’d planned for the day. Forgive me. At this rate you’ll never be ready for your finals. Let’s jump right back in.”

Scattered groans greeted his words, and Dr. Yinsen chuckled. “You object now, but each day you let Ms. Danvers distract me means one less day of test instruction and even the Triskelion must bow to standardized testing bullshit.” The class relaxed a notch at his words. 

Some wag a couple of rows ahead of Steve quipped, “Tell us how you really feel, Dr. Yinsen.” 

“Should I try, I am afraid I might be forced to use worse language than Ms. Potts. Ready yourselves, class. I have to cover the entirety of the day’s material in half the time.” 

Steve glanced over at Pepper to find her with a flush staining her pale cheeks and making her freckles stand out. He started to speak but she shook her head and mouthed ‘after’. Before he could protest, she bent over her work and proceeded to ignore him.

At the front of the class, Dr. Yinsen scrawled a new set of equations, much simpler than the ones he had been explaining to Ms. Danvers and the others. Still, they were years ahead of the things taught in the same class Steve had taken back home. Top of his class elsewhere apparently meant very little for him here. His sleeping Tony doodle was joined by scrawled equations and floating numbers. The way Dr. Yinsen struggled to explain some of the material for the class only drove home how straw-grasping even the most certain of the theories were for the how and why of the new world they lived in. 

Tony rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, stretched, and squinted around at the other students. He stared at Steve the longest, furrowing his brow as if he were trying to place him. Then his eyes slid past Steve to Pepper and widened. The clock on the wall above Dr. Yinsen informed him of the time, and Tony flicked his watch twice before lifting it to his ear. His curses were much quieter than Pepper’s and didn’t carry nearly as far, and the way the rest of the class responded by casually ignoring him said a lot about how often they had to deal with Tony’s quiet obscenities. 

With the efficiency of routine, Tony packed himself up and swung his backpack over his shoulder. He stood and tossed a casual salute toward the front of the class. Dr. Yinsen nodded in return, waving Tony out with a piece of chalk. 

Tony’s chosen route out of the classroom took him by Steve and Pepper and as he passed, he thumped Pepper’s desk with his fist. Pepper swatted him away with an exasperated huff, and the noise - soft though it was - startled Steve into looking up. He met Tony’s eyes just as they flicked back up from Steve’s notebook.

Steve would swear up, down, and sideways that Tony winked at him before sweeping from the room. The door clicked closed behind him and Steve glanced at his notebook to find the doodle of sleeping Tony framed by numbers. He had to admit that it looked nothing so much as a preteen girl’s diary where she drew her crush and surrounded the picture with tiny hearts. All Steve needed to do was write ‘Mr. Steve Tony’s-Last-Name’ repeatedly down the margins and the illusion would be complete. 

Placing his hand over the drawing, Steve sighed. Tony’s response could have been worse, and Pepper _had_ said ‘later’. He only hoped that ‘later’ meant ‘immediately after class’. He had more than a couple of questions after her outburst, and anyone willing to offer a transfer unlocked sympathy without knowing a lick about him was someone he wouldn’t mind being friends with. 

The chalkboard filled with another mass of runes and Dr. Yinsen spoke as fast as humanly possible. For all of the classes’ inattention while the mohawked blonde talked shop, the others were now bent over their desks, their pencils flying. Steve joined them, still hopelessly lost, and copied everything down the best he could with the hope he could catch up on his own before the test Dr. Yinsen had threatened.

He was determined to do whatever it took to keep up, to not become a cautionary tale or prove the opponents of early unlocking right with another thick case study. Maybe, eventually, he could stop feeling obscurely guilty about the sympathy in Pepper’s tone when she’s said she was sorry he’d been unlocked.


	2. Passing Period

At the bell at the end of class, Steve added to the cacophony of scraping chairs and shuffling paper by shoving his notebook into his backpack and standing before Pepper changed her mind and took off without him. They had five minutes before the next bell rang and they both had to be elsewhere, and Steve had hundreds of questions starting with: “What about ‘Stark’ gets that sort of reaction?”

Pepper paused her packing-up and looked up, her lips pursed into a contemplative moue. She folded her notebook very deliberately closed and waited until the last of the other students scooted to the hall. Dr. Yinsen busied himself in wiping down his chalkboard and pretended like he wasn’t listening. 

Choosing her words carefully, Pepper said, “Mr. Stark’s program is… controversial at Triskelion. Nobody thought he succeeded and everyone was perfectly fine with that. I certainly didn’t think the program worked. The fact that it did and I didn’t know is alarming to say the least.”

“It almost didn’t work,” Steve said, sitting on the desktop. He tried not to loom. “So far I’m the only successful resultant.” 

“Yes, well… we’ve all gotten a front row seat for the result of that kind of tampering.” Pepper tucked her books in her pack and looked up at him, her expression solemn. “And it _is_ tampering. You make six. Six unlocked in the entire school - which means the entire country, and you’re all...”

There was honestly no polite way to say it, so Pepper didn’t. Her jaw flexed. 

Steve finished for her. “Fucked up. We’re all fucked up.” 

Pepper pushed her chair out from behind the desk with a squeal of metal and stood. “Walk with me.”

On their way out, Dr. Yinsen gave them both a small salute. It was enough to bring the smile back to Pepper’s face and put Steve a little more at ease. He had known that volunteering for something as ethically questionable as an unlocking program would change the way he saw the world, he just hadn’t thought that it might also change the way the world saw him. 

The hallway was clogged with students trying to get from point A to point B, but as soon as they were out of the classroom Pepper said, “Dr. Yinsen is Tony’s favorite teacher, and not just because he lets him sleep.” 

“Noted,” Steve said. “Who are the other unlocked?” 

Pepper shook her head. “It’s not polite to out them. I can, however, point out our lone scion pair.” She leveled a finger down the hall toward a blond youth taller by a head than everyone else he was wading through. At his side strode a dark-haired, slender boy sporting eye liner and an eyebrow piercing. From across a hall full of noisy students, Steve couldn’t determine much else about them but the colors of their hair and the fact that everyone got out of their way in a hurry even in the packed confines of the school’s main thoroughfare. “They call them Asgardians.” 

Steve’s eyebrows shot up and he let loose a low whistle. “You mean they’re hereditary unlocked.” 

“Scions, yes,” Pepper confirmed. “Sometimes I wonder if their parents had the right idea in unlocking them in the womb, having them grow up that way.”

“They’re not as fucked up as the rest of us unlocked, I take it?” Steve asked dryly. 

Pepper had the grace to blush. “Yes and no. The things they can do, though, are by far and away the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. No naturally unlocked adult, even so-called masters, have come anywhere near it.” 

“I’d like to see that.” Steve rolled his shoulders to loosen his tension. “Maybe they would have some pointers for me.” 

“Talk to Thor. He’s the blond one built like an extremely climbable tree,” Pepper said, her tone so matter-of-fact that it took Steve a moment to register what she’d said. He boggled at her, but she just blinked at him. “What? I don’t know what they put in that cult’s water, but Asgardians are hot.” She paused and, with a studied nonchalance, asked, “Do you… agree?”

The way she asked the question wasn’t suspicious in the slightest. Not at all. Steve choked on a laugh, incredulous, and asked, “Really? Did you just try and get me to tell you who I’m attracted to?” 

Without shame, Pepper nodded. “It’s important information. The school is not very large. I need to be informed about these things to prevent embarrassment later. Surely you understand. Though if you do not wish to say for whatever reason, I will certainly respect that and drop the subject completely and never ask again.” Pepper watched him, an expectant look on her face. “Useful information is worth its weight here.” 

“You’re mercenary,” Steve told her, impressed despite himself. There was also no reason not to tell her. New school, new life. “Both.” 

“Both?” Pepper asked, eyes narrowing like this was an entirely unexpected answer.

“Both, but I’m more likely to get a crush on a boy.” 

Pepper tilted her head to the side, taking mental notes. “Is this something I can pass on to the interested?” 

“Are there any likely to be interested?” he asked in return. He didn’t mean for the question to come out quite so bitter. 

With a scoff, Pepper gestured him into the flow of students heading from lockers to classroom. The warning bell signaling that everyone should probably get to where they were going sounded, echoing slightly from the painted concrete of the walls. “Are you being insecure about your looks or being insecure about the whole unlocked thing?”

That was an excellent question. “Yes?” Steve answered.

“I told you, we’re used to the unlocked here. That’s why we have such strong feelings about them. You’ll be fine.” Pepper threw him a smile and halted in front of a classroom door. “Also, you’re cute.” 

“Thank you?” Nonplussed, Steve blinked at her.

Pepper looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked. “Can I see?” 

Steve had never heard the question couched with such blatant curiosity before. He looked down at his toes and said, “Uh, sure.” 

A couple of students pushed by them through the classroom door and Pepper dragged him back out of the way. “Please?” 

Lifting his hand, Steve stared at his palm. This was the part that made him feel not quite at home within his own skin, the part that was hardest to get used to. The last summer of constant physical and mental grooming had turned him into someone he barely knew, but this… 

The internet instructions had been dead simple, and it was honestly the only spell he knew solidly enough to be sure he wouldn’t maim someone or cause damage to his surroundings. It wasn’t even an official spell, just one from an ugly website full of dancing duck gifs put up sometime before he was born. 

A small red flame swirled up from his skin to pool in his palm. His surroundings dimmed a little, like the light was being sucked out and pulled beneath his skin. It was a sense of warmth, of power, and it was all accompanied by the tiny thrill of the illicit. 

“Red,” Pepper breathed. “Is it always red?” 

Of all the questions, Steve hadn’t expected that one. He laughed, folding his fingers into his palm and dousing the light. The hallway returned to normal, though the last few stragglers heading to their classes gave him a wider berth. He chuckled. “I can manage white. And blue.” 

Pepper laughed. “How patriotic.” She wasn’t flipping out. She had yet to scream and run. She was laughing, apparently fascinated, and did not look at all worried to be in close proximity to active magic performed by someone ridiculously untrained. Instead, she only said, “I guess that disproves my theory that you get one color of projectile and flame only.”

Her comment raised another set of questions that they didn’t have time for. Steve shuffled and looked over his shoulder at the mostly-empty hall. His classroom was supposed to be just around the corner, and he had no qualms about blaming being late on his first day to getting lost. Pepper, however, had no such excuse. He turned back and said, “You should get to class. I’m sorry to have kept you.” 

“I’m not. Sit with me and Tony at lunch.”

“Thank you,” Steve said, genuinely grateful. He wanted to linger as long as possible now that he’d found someone willing to talk to him, to actually help him orient himself in a baffling new situation, he didn’t want to leave. The bell to start class would ring any moment. 

“Don’t worry,” Pepper told him. “Seriously. The Triskelion is the best place for you to figure things out before you hit the big bad world. They’re prepared for accidents here, and every one of the rest of us knows how to handle them. So. Relax.” 

Steve tamped down on his instinctive response and merely nodded. “I’ll try.”

“Good,” she said. The door closed behind her just as the period bell rang.


	3. Lunch

Steve stood with his lunchbox at the edge of the cafeteria and gathered his courage. Pepper’s assessment that the school wasn’t very big was more or less true. The Triskelion educated a little over a thousand and a half students, and it was still smaller than the school Steve had come from in the first place. The lunch tables were still packed, though, and the room carried the heavy scent of active people - not quite body odor, but not necessarily pleasant. He scrubbed at his nose as he tried to pick out where Pepper and her cohort were sitting. 

The massive windows lining the back wall of the cafeteria overlooked a handful of round tables arrayed in the sun, and Pepper held court from the one with the best light. As Steve picked his way towards her and her friends, more than one cluster of students popped over to hand her a folder or ask her a question. At her side, Tony leaned back in his chair with his feet up on the table, speaking rapidfire with a blocky, curly-haired boy whose voice didn’t carry. 

By the time Steve pulled up at the table, Tony was embroiled in a very arm-wavy discussion and Pepper was pinching the bridge of her nose and speaking to a younger girl who popped gum and tapped something into her phone while she listened. 

“Are you secretly in charge of the school?” Steve asked Pepper when she broke off her conversation and turned to greet him. 

Her expression smoothed into a smile. “Not-so-secretly. Student body president. Sit.” She pointed at an empty chair across from her. Steve sat. “There’s supposed to be a holiday dance soon and two weeks out is as soon as I could get anyone to be serious about finalizing plans. There’s only so much I can do without steering people around by their ears.” 

“Not as fun as it sounds,” Tony said. He abandoned his chair between Pepper and the other boy and slid into a seat by Steve. “I was just telling everyone that you’re an artist.” 

There was no mockery in Tony’s expression, no sign that this was an opening meant to embarrass him. Considering that the only art of Steve’s Tony had experienced thus far had been a creeper doodle, Steve wasn’t quite sure how to respond. He looked around for help.

Besides Pepper and Tony there were two others already at the table. The younger girl tracked him through her lashes as she texted, and the boy had a neutral - vaguely indulgent? - expression that seemed mostly directed at Tony.

Steve settled for saying, “Yes?” It seemed safest choice.

“Do you have a sketchbook?” Tony asked. 

“Ah, yes. I do.” Steve said, thrown by the question. “Did you… want to see?”

“Of course,” Tony said, holding out his hands. This close Steve could see the dust of attempted stubble along his jaw and the dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked a bit rough, like his nap that morning during class had barely taken the edge off his exhaustion. His t-shirt clung to his wiry frame and Steve absently watched the muscles flex beneath the fabric while he pulled his sketchbook from his backpack and passed it over. His subconscious had been right earlier; Tony was an excellent life model. 

Steve added his usual disclaimer as he set the book in front of Tony. “It’s just a sketchbook, so most everything is just studies and roughs. There might be a couple of unfinished works in there, but that’s about as fancy as anything will be.” 

Pepper remained seated with her official-looking binder, but the other two took their cue to stand and crowd in behind Tony and, by default, Steve. Tony scooted his chair around the table a little, swearing at his friends to move, and arranged himself so that with the sketchbook laid open, it was easier for Steve to turn the pages for his audience.

Steve suddenly found himself hemmed in by a tiny girl chewing gum, the pale boy with glasses who Tony had been arguing with when Steve approached, and Tony. Tony sprawled into Steve with an elbow jab and a swift apology for thumping Steve’s ribs. He knocked their knees together in an epic display of sloppy limb rearrangement and took up residence at Steve’s side like he’d never heard of the concept of personal space. The others leaned over each of Steve’s shoulders, close enough that he could hear each breath they took and smell the watermelon of the girl’s chewing gum.

No one was looking at him, all of their attention directed to his sketchbook, but even without their eyes on him, the back of Steve’s neck warmed with a blush. The brush of sleeves and shoulders against his was the first he’d come to friendly intimacy since he’d undergone the unlocking procedure. Tony’s whole leg leaned against Steve’s, and Steve had a hell of a time convincing himself it was probably a bit weird to lean back.

Doctors and nurses got close, tested his reflexes and drew his blood, but unlocked power bubbled beneath his skin. The professionals that he’d worked with hadn’t wanted to get very up close and personal, even if they were being paid to convince him that everything was going to be all right. Their reluctance to touch him and enthusiasm to test him had made it very clear just how much of an outsider he’d chosen to make himself. Becoming an outsider had never been his intention, and for the moment he was just glad that even if everyone at the Triskelion knew what being a mid-year transfer implied, no one seemed especially bothered. 

Tony gestured each time he wanted a page turned. Steve obliged, even though it was a bit silly to be showing complete strangers his practice gestures and fruit studies. In his opinion, there really wasn’t anything impressive in his sketchbook. As if to prove him right, the girl went back to texting within about thirty seconds. She dropped her phone to squint at a drawing every time she finished a text, but whatever he’d interrupted was probably more interesting than pages after pages of hands.

With another imperious wave, Tony had Steve flip the page again to a bog-boring sphere study, took one look, and declared, “Introductions!” 

“Um-?” Steve began. He halted his paging and glanced at Pepper for help, but she just shook her head and nodded in Tony’s direction. Steve had no idea what that meant. He redirected his attention to Tony just in time to duck the finger leveled at the texting girl standing behind him. 

“That one’s Darcy, a freshman, and I have no idea why she’s sitting with us today instead of Jane,” Tony said.

“Thor’s baking,” Darcy said, like that explained everything. “And you’re adorable when you blush,” she told Steve. She then patted him on the head - a move that startled him badly enough that he almost ripped the page he was holding from his sketchbook - and wandered back to her chair.

The boy turned out to be Bruce and supposedly some sort of chem wiz, and then Tony started to spit names for everyone within a twenty foot radius. There was a whole group curled up behind an ornate brick planter nearby whose names Steve barely caught. The group did include the blonde with the mohawk from earlier, who was definitely named Carol, but that was the only name Steve picked out of Tony’s rapidfire patter. There was another redhead in ripped jeans with a boy snoring against her arm as she read from a book pressed to her knees. There might also have been someone sleeping in the planter, and someone named ‘Rhodey’ wasn’t sitting at the table with Tony today like they were supposed to because of JROTC, plus there was something about one of Pepper’s friends tracking down a student teacher. It was all a very confusing. Steve’s memory had improved since he was unlocked, but not enough to keep up with Tony’s introductions. 

Steve fixed on the group by the planter, because in and among them was the gothy scion, eating his lunch just like a normal person and listening to Carol as she tried to steal something out of his backpack. 

There was a flourish of green sparks and Carol snatched her hand back, laughing. Steve’s jaw dropped. He was still trying to recover from that little display of unlocked power and the complete and utter lack of reaction on the part of everyone else in the entire cafeteria when one name out of Tony mouth captured Steve’s attention. He snapped his jaw closed and refocused on Tony. “Wait, back up? What’d you just say?” 

“I said that Bucky’s not over there today. Probably had something to do for JROTC with Rhodey.” 

As far as nicknames went, Steve was fairly certain that ‘Bucky’ was not exactly common. “Bucky Barnes?”

“You know him?” Tony asked. He threw a glance at the boy still standing behind them before lasering in on Steve. He tipped his head to the side, a curious gesture followed by narrow-eyed scrutiny of whatever puzzle Steve presented. It was a gesture similar to the one Pepper had given him earlier, but there was a coiled-spring sense about Tony, of explosive energy packed tiny that gave Steve the impression that waiting wasn’t his natural state. It was a little like the anticipation that came from opening a snake-in-a-can, a mental analogy that made the tips of Steve’s ears heat and his fingers itch to draw.

The intensity with which Tony watched and waited for him to say something made Steve stumble over his words. “We were friends- neighbors growing up. Same neighborhood,” Steve said, bludgeoning his train of thought back onto track. The reminder that Bucky was here, somewhere, even if he wasn’t here just now was enough to quiet the crawling feeling of being so far out of his element. It would be a miracle if Bucky remembered him, but even if he didn’t, just knowing someone familiar was here with him gave him hope. He folded his sketchbook closed and said, trying to hide his relief, “I could-” 

Before he could finish his thought, a girl accompanied by the tall blond scion Pepper had pointed out earlier tromped up to the table. The boy who had been standing behind him to admire his sketchbook took their arrival as his cue to vacate his awkward stooping position and reclaim his seat before it was stolen by the newcomers. The sudden lack of warmth against the back of Steve’s chair was a rude shock and he felt himself tense back up. 

He hadn’t even noticed he’d relaxed. A quick glance at over showed Tony watching him, a schooled expression of ‘who, me?’ innocence springing to his face when Steve tilted his head towards Tony’s friend. Tony knocked his knee against Steve’s again, though whatever he was trying to convey was lost on Steve. 

There was no time for questions, though, because the blond scion announced, “Cookies!”

The scion was even taller in person, with shoulders worthy of a linebacker, his hair was hippy-long. He’d even managed a respectable scruff. His appearance at the table was followed by the smell of cookies, fresh baked, and he dropped a whole platter piled high with the things to the table with a triumphant, “Behold!” 

Tony leaned in as the girl gave Steve a brief wave. “Thor-” Tony pointed to the scion. His shoulder brushed Steve’s. “He’s a bit obvious, isn’t he? And accompanying him from the home-ec room is Jane.” 

Jane, a sweet-faced brunette in glasses, was accosted by Darcy before she could sit and her oversized sweater snagged on her chair. Between cookies and whatever she and Darcy began to flail about, she didn’t seem to notice. 

Dropping into a seat, Thor started passing out baked goods. 

Steve ended up with a chocolate macadamia nut cookie melting all over his fingers and the distinct feeling that Pepper knew what she was exposing him to when she had invited him to sit with her at lunch. He couldn’t decide whether to thank her or plead mercy and run.

His breath warm on Steve’s neck, Tony said, “Jane is brilliance itself, the light of my life, and I’m going to marry her if she ever decides she and science are capable of an open relationship.” 

Jane didn’t hear him. She was explaining something to Darcy who watched her with an expression somewhere between rapt awe and the wide-eyed look people got when they were trying to appear interested enough to appease a crazy person. 

Pepper, however, _had_ heard Tony’s comment. “You are absolutely not, even if Jane and science sorted something out,” she said, fixing Tony with a stern look. She pointed her pencil at Thor. The ridiculous puppy-dog look of affection he had turned on the oblivious Jane was hard to miss. Thor even passed Jane a cookie, which she took with a mumbled thank you and a flashed smile. It was both sad and cute and Steve was having the worst trouble trying to wrap his head around a _scion_ having anything near enough to a normal life to have an unrequited crush. Pepper shook her head. “I’m not responsible for any more broken hearts.”

“Pep, Pepper,” Tony said, sprawling back in his chair. “You know you’re the only one for me.” 

“I know for a fact that you literally tell that to everyone you know,” Pepper said, unimpressed. “Now leave me alone. Running the prices for catering against the budget requires phone calls, and phone calls require you finish introductions with Steve.” She tilted her chin down and gave Tony a meaningful look. “Let him shake hands with Thor.”

After a beat, Tony wagged his forefinger at her. “Ah, clever. Point to you. Shaking hands with Thor it is. Thor-” Tony called across the table to catch his attention. “Come say hello to Steve, Triskelion’s newest transfer.” 

“A pleasure,” Thor said. He broke off his cookie consumption and his admiration of Jane and stood. Pepper’s description of him as a tree fit well, because he towered over Steve with a benevolent grin. He dragged his chair after himself, sat an arm’s length away, and stuck out his hand. “Thor Odinson, of Asgard. We are well met.” 

“Steve Rogers, um, of Brooklyn,” Steve said. 

Tony, at Steve’s side, furrowed his eyebrows at Steve’s full name and looked to Pepper. She ignored him, all her attention on Steve.

“Uh,” Steve said, trying to refocus on Thor and leave Tony’s partial-recognition of his name for later. He stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, too.”

Thor’s large hand closed around Steve’s, and the skin-to-skin contact sparked a reaction that no one in any of the unlocked briefings had ever mentioned would happen. 

The lack of mention was a major, _major_ oversight. 

The unlocked power in Steve’s gut lit up like a barrel full of fireworks, and his perception of Thor shifted away from the visible light spectrum to one governed entirely by instinctual magic. Instead of a lanky, meat-headed sort of boy shaking his hand, Thor became the image of man limned in golden light shot through with sparks of blue lightning. The overlaid vision was part prescience, part potential, and wholly unexpected. The hard, classical lines of Thor’s features - present out in the real world only in proto-form - softened into a grin. 

“Steve Rogers,” Thor boomed in a tone of delighted surprise. “Very well met indeed.” 

Steve was still holding Thor’s hand in a death-grip, desperately glad that he was already sitting down and that Tony was still sort of leaning against him after sketchbook show-and-tell. The lights faded to something less eyeball searing and more mentally manageable as Steve disentangled his hand from Thor’s and pulled back. He was at a loss for words. He felt shaky and less at home with his unlocked power than he had been since the procedure. Power writhed in his guts and his skin felt too tight and liable to tear if he moved too quickly. 

Thor thumped him on the back with gentle camaraderie and said, “The response eases with time. I would have warned you had I known that you were both our newest unlocked companion and that Tony had neglected to explain the phenomena. He is our resident expert, if somewhat of a fickle one.” 

From where Tony sat next to Steve, half propping him up, an open orange juice bottle slid into his field of vision. “Blood sugar. Drink it.” 

“And cookies,” Thor said. 

Someone shoved a warm cookie into Steve’s hand, though by this point he was feeling far steadier and not as shocky. “A little warning would have been nice,” Steve said, straightening in his chair and grabbing the offered orange juice. The kind of drain he was feeling now would leave him still hungry after he finished off his lunch.

“You know that Thor’s a scion,” Tony told him. “Now you have a control group experience, so to speak. You have to learn to brace yourself against that first vision. Outing an unlocked - even a natural unlocked - is pretty much a no-no.” 

“And nobody told me this why?” Steve let his anger leak through.

“I’m not responsible for the crap info packets they hand out,” Tony snipped back.

“Tony-” Pepper cut in with a warning tone.

Steve found the entire table following his and Tony’s back and forth with wide eyes. Darcy had even set down her phone, and Jane had broken away from their conversation. He tried to put a damper on his irritation. Pepper might not have been talking to him, but this was really not the kind of first impression he wanted to make. 

However, Tony didn’t have the same qualms, “Look, Steve-“

“You had orange juice waiting for me, but couldn’t be bothered to tell me that I was about to have surprise visions that you knew were coming?” Steve deliberately scooted out of contact with Tony, severing what was the first contact of any length with another human being since who knew how long. The lack of Tony’s warm leg against his own was alone enough to make him tetchy.

“It’s a rite of passage,” Tony argued. “I brought you orange juice.”

“Rite of… You mean hazing. It’s a hazing ritual.”

“Whatever it was, it was harmless.” Tony raised his volume and a hint of the volatility that Steve noted earlier crept into his voice.

“And completely unnecessary.” 

“And now it’s a thing of the past.” Tony threw his hands in the air, a display that turned heads of the people at nearby tables. “Poof. Look at that.” 

Steve’s resolve not embody the unlocked stereotypes of being unreasonable and quick to anger crumbled beneath his exasperation. His clipped words took on a bit of bite. “So don’t repeat the past. Warn people.”

“Hopefully there won’t be more unlocked anytime soon,” Tony snapped at him, his volume climbing. “That way we wouldn’t need to warn them.”

Steve clicked his jaw shut and drew back. 

A hush fell across the table and rippled out across the cafeteria. Faces that had swiveled in their direction at the prospect of entertainment turned away. It was a long moment before conversations started back up. 

Steve had volunteered for an experimental unlocking program - bleeding edge and the first of its kind. He was the only success in a sea of failures, but it had been his decision and his decision alone to enroll when he hit eighteen. 

Anyone else here who was also unlocked wasn’t unlocked by choice.

The orange juice was a peace offering of sorts. Steve twisted off the cap with perhaps more force than necessary and downed it in one long gulp. He deposited the empty plastic back on the table with a thump and said, “I’m sorry.” 

“You have to shake hands with Bruce.” Tony said, ignoring the apology. “Bruce. C’mere.” 

The boy who had peered at Steve’s sketchbook and argued with Tony reached across the table to extend his hand. Bespectacled and pale, his shoulders curved like he carried a weight no one else could see, but his smile was friendly enough. “Bruce Banner.” 

“Any friend of Tony’s,” Steve said, summoning up a smile in return. He could be personable, if not entirely sincere.

“You say that now-” Bruce said, his air of long-suffering returned. Steve half stood out of his chair and reached past Tony. Just before he grasped Bruce’s fingers, Bruce pulled back an inch and wiggled his fingers, saying, “Fair warning.” 

Steve’s smile lost its forced quality. “Thank you,” he said, “But I kind of figured.” 

This time, Steve was prepared. The perception shift dragged his unlocked power up through his chest to show him visions, and it buffeted his mind and body. He had, however, already gone through the process once. After a moment, he was rewarded by the sight of Bruce as he was and would be. 

In Magic-o-Vision, Bruce towered above Steve in a bubbling, bilious green cloud that mimicked muscle mass. The only solid part of the vision were Bruce’s eyes, and they carried a shrewd intelligence veiled by the spark of rage. The vision pulsed with menace and anger and raw, uncontrolled power.

 _Oh my God,_ was Steve’s only coherent thought. He could have kissed someone for introducing him first to Thor and his reassuringly human vision-self. Bruce’s alternative form sent the tiny instinctual lizard part of Steve’s brain skittering to safety. The other part of him, the one that had made the cold-logic decision to participate in an experiment that could very well have killed him, began to plan how he could quell the kind of threat that Bruce presented. 

His grip tightened on Bruce’s fingers briefly before he released and pulled back. 

The vision of Bruce’s alternative form swirled. Steve remained focused on him. As Steve’s unlocked power settled, the vision shrank and evaporated and returned Bruce to Bruce. 

There was a moment of quiet interrupted only by the conspicuous scratch of Pepper’s pencil on paper and then the thick scent of fresh cookies let Steve know that he was absolutely ravenous. He pulled four cookies from the dwindling tower and devoured them without regard for his audience. His relatively untouched lunch was next, and he pulled out a sandwich and an apple and started to make inroads before anyone said anything.

However, most of the audience watched not him, but Bruce.

“You okay, buddy?” Tony asked, extending a cautious hand. 

Steve looked up from his food to find Bruce regarding him with a small smile on his face. From the very little Steve knew of Bruce, it was not out of place, but at it’s appearance, the others at the table were now using the kind of wary, slow motions that would ostensibly keep a wild creature from spooking. 

Bruce waved Tony away. Impatient with the caution, he said, “Interesting interaction of our respective reservoirs. Though I think I must echo Thor here, I… think we are well met indeed. Son of a bitch.” He swore, laughed a bit higher than would account for true humor, and shook his hands like he was drying them off. “Holy shit, Steve. If whoever unlocked you has any idea what they’ve done- God, fuck. Holy shit. Welcome to the goddamned Triskelion.” 

Tony turned and stuck out his hand, expression somewhere between curious and determined. “Tony Stark.” 

“Tony Stark,” Steve echoed, too stunned to do more than set his apple down on the table. He looked from the extended hand up to Tony’s face and back down. “Howard never mentioned his son was unlocked.” 

Tony choked breathing in. “Fuck,” he swore. “Fuck. _Rogers_. You. Steve Rogers.” He dropped his hand and stood from the table abruptly enough to jostle the whole thing and earn a glower from Pepper. “I’ll be back. Don’t wait up.”

The collective regard of half the cafeteria followed Tony Stark as he fled. Pepper’s disgruntlement changed to concern. She popped out of her chair to follow. “Tony-” she said, followed by a muttered something about Rhodey’s turn and shirking. She tried to chase him down before he got too far, but he had a head start. He disappeared around a corner and left the cafeteria behind. 

Darcy watched them both go, shrugged, and began to pack up Pepper’s things for her when Pepper disappeared around the same corner. Thor and Jane both looked confused but not surprised, and Bruce rubbed his temples like they pained him. Everyone turned to Steve. 

Once again the table was silent, but this time everyone was staring at him for answers. Shifting uncomfortably in his chair and tamping down on the absurd feeling of being abandoned, Steve said, “I volunteered for Stark Industries’s latest unlocking experiments. I’m- I’m the only one who made it through the program.” 

The silence took on a different character and stretched far longer than Steve was comfortable with. He shifted again and tried to look anywhere but at the other faces turned in his direction. The half-eaten apple in his lunch grew increasingly unappetizing as his stomach churned. If he needed to pack up and leave, he might as well do it sooner rather than later. The sandwich bag crinkled too-loud in the silence when he shoved it back into his lunch box.

Much to his surprise, Thor’s heavy hand came down on his shoulder. “Stark often remembers tasks he left incomplete at inconvenient moments. I would not let his outburst worry you.” 

“A reassuring, if blatant, lie,” Steve told him. He stopped packing up and let out a sigh. “But thanks. I thought- You’re not-” 

Steve halted and tried again, speaking more to his lunch than to the others ranged around the table, “Pepper said earlier that most of the people going to Triskelion had opinions about the Stark Industries experiments, and not a lot of positive ones.” 

Thor shook his head, but it was Bruce who answered, “Those of us who are already unlocked wish we had been given the choice. Anyone who is locked, they only have experience with us. We only have experience with us. Everyone is… just going to wonder why on earth you made the choice that you did.”

After a long moment of silence, Steve asked, “And Tony?” 

This time it was Jane who spoke up, hushing both boys and Darcy with an abrupt, “They can’t answer for him.” The corner of Bruce’s mouth ticked up, making Steve think he’d been about to try. A mischievous look spread across her face. “I suggest asking him yourself. Primary source and everything. Properly executed scientific investigations are, after all, my first love.”

Steve stared at her for a moment before bursting into laughter. He covered his eyes with his hands. “You heard.” 

“This is Tony, of course I heard,” she said and smiled. Her cheeks dimpled. Out of the corner of Steve’s eye, Thor beamed at her with a grin that split his face. Jane leaned forward across the table toward Steve as if she were imparting a secret. “Seriously, though. You’ll get a more satisfying answer out of Tony himself than any of the rest of us.”

“Thank you,” Steve said. “For both the advice and for not kicking me to the curb for, well, being a dick.” 

It was Jane’s turn to laugh. “Like you could leave the table if you tried. You put away half the cookies all by yourself.” 

The whole table chuckled. Steve acknowledged the point with a rueful grin and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Compliments to the chef?” he asked, throwing a sheepish smile at Thor, and his words seemed to be enough to break the final bit of ice. 

Jane and Darcy’s banter washed over him as he finished his lunch, and Thor’s reassuring scion mass remained in the chair next to him the entire meal.


	4. Societal Integration

Steve showed up to the class called ‘Societal Integration’ not quite sure what to expect. The gymnasium that the tiny map on his schedule directed him to was on the other side of the football field, as far from the main building as it could be without leaving the campus. He approached down a walkway routed around where any student might conceivably be for any school-sanctioned reason. 

The cluster of smokers standing just to the side of the walkway on a patch of bare earth stared at him as he went past. Steve ducked his head, waved, and scooted by as swiftly as possible. 

The gym rose before him like a monolith at the end of the path. Massive metal bolts studded the otherwise featureless brick sides of the construct and the closer Steve got to the building, the less easily his unlocked power sat in his guts. The bolts in the walls weren’t sparking, he was probably imagining that, but his experience with the simple act of shaking hands at lunch suggested ‘imagination’ in this instance might be wishful thinking. With some trepidation, Steve pushed open the double doors that led inside. 

A cluster of other students stood chatting in a circle in the middle of a single room that spanned the length of the entire building. The floor gave beneath Steve’s feet as he stepped inside, a surface not unlike a gymnast’s mat, and the walls within the gym sported a lattice of metal and rope that stretched from the ceiling down. Large glowing runes scattered across the walls shed a pale lavender light mostly drowned out by the overhead fluorescents. Steve halted in the doorway and clutched the straps of his backpack. There was more advanced magic written on the walls of the place than he’d ever seen before, and for every rune there was an accompanying nodule full of blinking electronic lights nestled behind the scaffolding. 

Steve collected himself with a deep breath and headed over to the conversation circle. Thor hailed him from afar and as Steve approached, he found that he knew the others already, if only from a distance. Thor and Bruce, but also Carol with her blonde mohawk, the gothy scion who’d spat green sparks at her, the redhead who had been reading, and the blond boy who’d been sleeping against her arm. 

Thor slapped him on the back the moment he got within range and Steve stumbled to a halt next to the other students. Across the circle, Bruce gave him a friendly wave. Bruce’s face held a hint of relief that echoed the look he’d given Steve after he shook his hand earlier. 

“Welcome to the club,” drawled the gothy scion. “In case your introductions have been neglected, I’m Loki.” He didn’t bother to smile, but he sounded amused never-the-less. He listed off each of the other’s names, starting cheekily with Thor, and ending with, “The scary-looking one’s Natasha, she can kill you with her pinky, and the cute one is Clint. I’m not sure what he’s best at, but I think he likes dogs? Pretty sure we just keep him around for his looks.”

Natasha huffed a laugh under her breath, but the others nodded along, deadpan. The expression Clint directed at Steve was one of sheer earnestness and contained just the very hint that someone was pulling Steve’s leg.

“Ah, pleased to meet all of you,” Steve said, trying to be diplomatic. He put on his best self-deprecating tone and tucked his chin to ask, “Do I offer to shake?” 

That earned a chuckle from everyone except Loki. Steve’s other, more serious questions were put on hold by the arrival of two men from the far end of the facility. 

One man was familiar. Fury, tall, one-eyed, and dressed all in black, was the director of the Triskelion and the one who had come to Stark Industries to insist that Steve be put back into school as soon as the next test phase wound to a close. 

The other man was not familiar. He looked barely old enough to be a teacher and as whitebread as Steve himself, and he exuded an unflappable calm. He also carried a clipboard that he scribbled on while he walked. The scratch of his pen was loud in the surprised silence. 

“Ms. May is usually our instructor,” Bruce said at his side. Startled, Steve looked down to find the other boy standing just outside of Steve’s personal bubble, a hell of a lot closer than he was the last time Steve had looked his way. Bruce continued, “Coulson’s a staple, our Societal Integration Student Teacher, but having Fury here means there’s a special occasion.” 

Steve hefted his backpack higher onto his shoulders. “I take it I’m the special occasion.” 

Still marching forward, Fury leveled one brown finger at the group and barked, “You’re late.”

Everyone but Steve swiveled around. A beat later, Steve looked over his shoulder as well. 

“Or you’re early,” Tony said. He dumped his slick black bag against the wall and rambled over to the group at a leisurely pace. “I think the odds are in my favor, seeing as how I turn up at this class regularly and this is the first time you’ve shown your catwalk moves to the class since the start of the school year.” 

“I think you’re full of bullshit, Stark,” Fury said. “Get over here.” 

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Tony threw a lazy salute and pulled to a stop at Steve’s side, wedging his way - completely unnecessarily - between Steve and Thor. “I didn’t miss the new kid getting put through his paces?” 

“That’s not on the docket for today. Today is giving young Rogers here a rundown of what sort of exercise we give the unlocked at the Triskelion. Coulson, give the boy a crash course in theory while I bridle up these show-ponies.” 

“If you’ll come with me,” Coulson said, a light hand on Steve’s elbow. He directed him back toward the wall of the gym. The others moved away in the opposite direction. “It’s safest over here.” 

Steve raised his eyebrows. “Safest?” 

“You’ll see.” 

Upon reaching the edge of the gym, Coulson directed Steve to drop his backpack and stay within a line of yellow tape. The tape had been spelled, and faint lavender spell-strings scratched into the tape used some of the ‘protection’ runes that Steve had learned just today.

“Is this safe?” Steve asked. One of the ends of the tape was peeling up from the floor. He nudged it with his toe and had to shake his shoe to release it from the stickum. “It’s- not exactly confidence-inspiring.” 

Coulson offered him a reassuring smile. “It is. The binding might be only tape, but the spell was laid by Fury himself. You’re in good hands, I promise.” 

Not a lot was happening out in the gym proper. Fury led the others to the far end of the gym and gave them instructions that didn’t carry far enough for Steve to hear. He shifted from foot to foot and asked, “So- what’s with the gym?” 

Pointing with his pencil, Coulson drew Steve’s attention to the massive runes he’d noticed upon first entering. “The whole facility is grounded. Any unfocused discharge will be siphoned off and dispersed harmlessly, rather than give it a chance to blow up the school. This is one of the most state-of-the-art facilities in the United States, possibly the world, and it is designed specifically for the management of unlocked youth.” 

The others broke from their group and headed in seven separate directions while Fury took up a post at the far end of the gym. Most spaced themselves around the edges of the space, but Clint grabbed a hold of the scaffolding nearest him and began to climb hand-over-hand up toward the ceiling three stories above. Magic began to flicker at the corners of Steve’s eyes as each of them started to gather their unlocked power for whatever was coming next. 

“Fury has a theory, still unsubstantiated because of the thankfully low numbers of early unlocked.” Coulson’s small smile said ‘nothing personal’. “The theory is that the reason there are so many accidents is because the unlocked often have no constructive outlet for what becomes an intrinsic need or compulsion. Confronted with a threat, an unlocked becomes a liability unless they are taught to respond constructively under duress. The most successful of the unlocked - natural or early - are the experimenters, the ones willing to test their own limits in controlled environments.

“This is the Triskelion’s controlled environment,” Coulson finished. He swept a hand out to indicate the gym with the others going through various warm-up routines. Most were riffing off the same sequence of basic stretches, although Loki was doing something complicated with his hands that left a rave-like streak of green light following each his gestures. In the rafters, Clint was settling down like he was preparing to take a nap. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms all while hooking his legs around the large steel beam holding him up. He looked awfully comfortable thirty feet above the ground.

“Though it is considered limiting in some schools of thought, especially those that rarely have anything to do with young people-” Coulson adopted a tour-guide voice and pointed to Thor. “-Fury takes a page out of the Asgardian method of training their children and relies heavily on the idea of focus objects.” 

In one fluid, easy motion, Thor pulled a short-handled warhammer from thin air. It sparked with the same echo of magic that Steve had seen when they’d shaken hands, and the sides of the thing were inscribed with runes that glowed bright enough that Steve could see them from halfway across the gym. Thor spun the hammer in his hands and laughed. Leveling it at Loki across the gym, he made an ‘I’ve got my eyes on you’ gesture with two fingers. 

Steve followed the look. The spear Loki held arced up a good six inches past the top of his head and the shaft was dense with runes. A curved, tapered blade at the top protected a pulsing gemstone. A rich golden energy dripped from the metallic surface and the rune’s grooves threw out emerald light. It was a flashy piece of work.

“The Asgardians don’t do things by halves,” Steve said, pulling a frown. “Those are weapons.” 

“They are,” Coulson agreed. 

“You could do some serious damage with a little bit of knowledge on how to use them.” 

“You could.” 

Steve rounded on Coulson. “What is Fury really trying to do here?” 

“These two were home-schooled until they became old enough to attend the Triskelion. There is little Fury could have done to shape their focuses.” 

“Then what about the rest of them?” Steve demanded, pointing up into the rafters to use Clint as his example. The boy had thick recurved bow in hand, very clearly a weapon. Down on the ground, Natasha was checking something that glittered on each of her wrists, and Tony was _growing a suit of armor_ in bright midlife-crisis red. The only two without a visible bent toward mayhem were Carol and Bruce, and sparks danced between Carol’s fingertips. “You don’t put weapons into the hands of students without a purpose.” 

“The purpose is simple.” Coulson tilted his head toward the others. “Play.”

On some cue Steve missed, the gym filled with loose magic that rumbled through the soles of his feet, accompanied by light and sound enough that he slapped his hands to his ears. The roar of flame overlaid staccato pew-pew laser noises straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon. There was laughter and the whine of some sort of engine. A feminine whoop followed close on the heels of a wave of static heat that washed through the spell in the tape barrier and made the hair on Steve’s arms stand on it. The echoes from the gym walls made the sound ten times worse. Steve squinted at the ‘play’ ahead of him, as if closing his eyes would lessen the noise. 

Coulson tapped him on the shoulder and offered him a set of noise-canceling headphones. He pointed at his own ears, a wry twist to his lips. Steve plucked the headphones from his hands and shoved them on his ears. Once the noise was back at reasonable decibels, Steve had a chance to survey the participants in the free-for-all. 

At first he could make out little in the pandemonium. There was a blast of something brilliant yellow that splashed against the taped-down spell barrier inches from Steve’s nose. A thick beam of milky blue shot down from near the ceiling, hitting the ground with a liquid splatter of plasma that dissipated a heartbeat after impact. An ugly series of dirty-smoke explosions, plain fire and heat, marched their way across the gym floor, sprouting from tiny specks of black whose provenance Steve couldn’t quite make out. 

As the smoke cleared and the loose magic was grounded into the alternately flaring and dimming runes etched into the walls of the gym, Steve found the field resolving in his mind into a series of crystalline images. Like single frames in a film reel, images of the constantly-shifting mock battle stuttered and started and slowed enough that he could pick out details. He squinted against the glare of another explosion. The madness hadn’t exactly lessened, but Steve found himself able to pluck the method to the fore. 

There were two three-person sparring sessions happening at once, an upper and a lower. Above flew Carol and Tony, caroming off the scaffolding against the walls as they tried to blast each other out of the sky with flashy displays of raw power. Clint, part of the upper group by virtue of sitting higher than any of them could fly without running into the rafters, shot at them like clay pigeons. His motions were that of a young bow hunter using a physical weapon, his arm reaching behind his head for each subsequent arrow. He swiveled on the rafter, putting his back to Steve, and where there would otherwise be a quiver, individual arrows coalesced in Clint’s grasp. His technique combined muscle memory and magic. 

The observation threw Steve back to the tiny room at Stark Industries and the weeks of rolling film showing him every active unlocked on file. A spell itched at his mind now that he was trying to access the memories, but behind the limited amnesia laid an interminable series of dossiers. The spell had been cast before he came to Triskelion. He had no doubt it had been meant to last the duration of his senior year. So much for that idea.

 _Clint Barton. Current Location: Triskelion (minor unlocked database redirect). Current Unlocked Supervision: Fury (personnel redirect), May (personnel redirect). Current Age: 17 (certificate redirect). Unlocked as a preteen (date ambiguity investigation redirect) by person or persons unknown (suspect plausibility studies redirect). Half-trained by a circus (federal employment database redirect - red flagged employer) before the ‘half’ part caught up with him, along with the first of -_

Steve halted his mind’s rote regurgitation of the ugly black file text and clenched his jaw. He had volunteered for this. Whatever his feelings on the matter now, he hadn’t walked out of that tiny room when he had a chance. 

He swallowed that particularly unpalatable thought and breathed deep of the mixed magic leaking past the barrier set up by Fury’s spelled tape. 

The lower level of the gym contained a far more subtle back and forth than the explosive enthusiasm of the upper, for all that Thor was involved. The Asgardians, steeped in magic, sparred as if they had been choreographed. Steve had never seen illusions thrown about with such careless regard for the power involved. Loki sauntered across the center of the gym, feinted a few steps forward, dodged a sunburst ricochet from Carol above, and charged Thor with spear extended. 

Thor’s downswing was timed to perfection, and Steve’s heart leapt to his throat. Instead of crushing through Loki’s skull, however, it swiped clean through the simulacra and rebounded from the floor. The real Loki tapped the tip of his spear against the back of Thor’s head. Point.

Sweeping around and up with his hammer in a controlled swing, Thor forced Loki to dance backward and drop low. Loki struck out with the butt of his spear at Thor’s ankles and Thor leapt the haft, the bottoms of his sneakers clearing the wood but barely. He lunged bodily forward and simultaneously dropped to one knee. He grasped Loki’s ankle, tugged him off balance, and swung the hammer at the center of Loki’s chest. 

He pulled the power from his swing at the last moment and the runed stone of the hammer tapped the front of Loki’s t-shirt. Their sparring showed every sign of long familiarity, agility versus power, matched point for point. 

With a laugh, Loki dissolved again and Steve was forced to re-evaluate the entire fight. The chaos of too many unlocked playing too hard in too small of a space had ordered itself, all the elements of composition spread out in layers before him. Upper and lower, skill and instinct, raw power and careful intellect, and threaded through it all - an elusive element that Steve was only just starting to grasp. _Fun_. For the first time since he’d awoken unlocked, Steve itched to step out from behind the yellow line of tape and see just how far his newfound abilities might take him. 

A cloud of smoke to the side parted to reveal Loki walking along with its natural drift and performing a complicated hand-jive of a spell. A frown sprang to his face as his cover left him behind, and the moment his concentration dropped was the moment Natasha flickered into view from behind whatever veil of invisibility she had cloaked herself. She slapped Loki’s ass and laughed when he jumped.

Without hesitation, Loki struck out behind him. His arm passed harmlessly over Natasha’s back-bend. He followed through with the motion, whipping around, just as she finished her gymnastic walkover and threw herself well clear of any further retaliation. She then popped out of sight, invisible. Loki followed a moment after with a snap of his fingers. Thor was too busy reflecting an energy blast from above to notice the exchange. 

There wasn’t enough space for the flighted two. They mimicked a dogfight between jets, except that the walls that bound them inside the gym kept forcing them into tight turns that they didn’t always make. The clang of metal on metal as Tony took the hairpin at the far end of the gym too quickly was drowned out only by a heavy rumble of thunder that carried the taste of Thor’s magic with it. 

Coulson shouted something that Steve couldn’t make out. Steve leaned in and beckoned to him to shout louder. 

“Each and every unlocked needs to find the limit of their strength without needing to hold back,” Coulson shouted. The strain of raising his voice showed on his face, and he was still just barely loud enough to be heard over the reverberations of Thor’s latest hammer strike. “Otherwise people get hurt.”

Steve looked at his fellow unlocked and back to Coulson. He bobbed his head, pointed at Carol just as she performed a flip and shot straight down toward Tony, and shouted, “Play?”

Whether or not Coulson heard him or just read his lips was irrelevant. Coulson nodded, the motion exaggerated as if that would help either of them hear. “Exactly.”

Question answered, Steve dropped his hand and pointed instead off to the side of the gym, about halfway down the wall from where he and Coulson stood. He tilted his head in query. 

Bruce sat at the wall of the gym, his knees pulled up to his chin and his arms wrapped around his legs. He played audience to the festivities much as Steve and Coulson did. His shoulders rose and fell with his deep, rapid breathing. 

“Not controlled yet,” Coulson told him, his words dropping into one of the rare moments of quiet.

At the far end of the gym, Fury stood in observation with his arms folded behind his back. He nodded at any particularly impressive display of tactical thinking, but for the most part he let the melee roll on without interference.

Clint shot an arrow that missed Carol as she flew by in pursuit of Tony. She flipped and skidded to a midair halt to mock him, only to have the arrow arc back around and hit her between the shoulders. She yelped and flipped him off, and Clint crowed something that Steve couldn’t hear.

Fury’s ear-splitting whistle came as a surprise, but the moment it cut through the cacophony, everyone took up positions. Thor and Loki found a bench together and sprawled out, Natasha’s veil of invisibility dropped to reveal her halfway up the wall scaffolding, Clint settled back against his rafter and Carol perched herself next to him to trade fist-bumps. Only Tony remained airborne and alert, flying out to the center of the gym to hover. The hotrod candy-coat he’d given himself drew Steve’s eye and the positioning drew Steve’s curiosity, but no one but Steve was looking in Tony’s direction. 

All eyes on Bruce, a waiting quiet descended. 

Bruce staggered standing up and the vision that Steve had seen when they shook hands became reality. Magic boiled from Bruce’s skin like solar flares on the surface of the sun, erupting out in great gouts of green light only to be sucked back into Bruce’s orbit. In a matter of moments, the boy turned into a monster. Hunched and hulking, he stood a dozen feet tall, a cloud of pea soup filled with flashbulbs, and his translucent skin stretched tight across the contours of phantom muscles. 

The logic of the other student’s arrangement became clear. Bruce - or whoever Bruce was when he boiled over - lunged up at the shiny red toy of Tony in armor in a display of immense strength. His fingers closed just shy of Tony’s boot-jets, marking his leap as a good twenty feet almost straight up into the air. Caught by gravity, the creature roared and slammed into the ground. The walls and scaffolding vibrated with the impact. Steve’s bones vibrated in sympathy.

For all that Tony’s games with Carol had been a series of aerial acrobatics with a laser light show component, it was Tony’s dance with big, green, and nasty that highlighted the precision with which he flew. The demonstration of Bruce’s magic became a game of chase. Tony flitted just out of reach, a butterfly teasing a gorilla, and Bruce repeatedly snatched at him with fingers as thick around as Steve’s thigh. Little laser bolts zipped past Bruce’s head, just close enough to keep Bruce’s attention, not close enough to hurt. It was a light, rather silly game for all that one of the participants was a great hulking brute created from uncontrolled magic. 

It had been easy to miss earlier among the explosions and raucousness and the awe of watching the Asgardians toy with one another, but Tony had skill. He demonstrated a limited skill-set for his outward display of magic - flight and lasers and a defensive shell - but it became rapidly apparent that he had honed his mastery of each until three or four spells were all he really needed. The way he held his own against rampaging magic without hurting Bruce was proof of the value of a depth-first study of magic. It bespoke focus.

It was, actually, the same kind of focus that Tony had had on him earlier at lunch. Notwithstanding the reactions of magic-to-magic upon skin contact, the unlocked didn’t indulge in touch without reason and certainly not with people they’d just met. Tony’s current showcase of outwardly careless action used to conceal just how precise he was in executing his intentions had Steve feeling rather stupid. Tony’s earlier (over)friendliness took on a new character. 

Steve had been so preoccupied with the novelty of someone willing to get within two feet of him that he had missed the otherwise blatant implications of Tony halfway to _sitting in his lap_. He wasn’t used to being flirted with, and to make matters worse, Steve had called him out over the hazing thing and chased him off by insulting him with Tony’s father’s name. He owed an apology, preferably as soon as possible. He could only hope he hadn’t blown his chances with Tony completely. 

The game of cat and mouse between Tony and Bruce continued long past when Steve thought it should have ended, and no one subbed in for Tony. They were waiting. Above, Carol crouched, ready to leap. Below, Thor hefted his hammer and looked concerned. Visibly tired, Tony misjudged an angle and one of his laser-like spells zipped off course and into Bruce’s massive green knee. 

With all the chasing and none of the catching, the sting was the last straw. The creature-that-was-Bruce got frustrated and the game become something much different. 

Halting at a wall, Bruce reached out with a huge hand and wrapped his fingers around the scaffolding. He yanked. The wall buckled. One of the lavender runes on the wall blinked out and the computer cluster next to it went dead. Above, Natasha and Carol caught Clint by the back of the collar as all three of them scrambled to keep hold of the rafter. Clint’s bow spun from his fingers and disappeared in a puff of residual magic halfway to the floor. 

Tony’s helmet disappeared and he began to shout and wave his arms at Bruce. Bruce, however, did not allow himself to be baited again. He sank his fingers into the gym floor, straight into the mats that had survived fire and magic backlash and everything else so far without a scratch, and ripped up a chunk as big as Steve’s torso. Concrete sparked with lavender magic and the thin layer of matting on the top off-gassed something noxious looking. Bruce swung around like a shot-putter and threw the hunk at the Asgardians. 

Steve threw himself forward on instinct. The spelled tape barrier threw off sparks and bounced him back. He couldn’t get through, couldn’t help. Fury was just standing there, doing nothing. Coulson too, though he looked worried, at least. Steve stepped back to the barrier between him and the others and put a hand out. The spell sparked and bit at his fingers, but nothing gave and he could only watch as the hunk of concrete flew at Thor and Loki’s heads. 

Their reactions did them credit, though. Thor had his hammer up and swinging before he even stood, and some spell of Loki’s hit the concrete dead center. When Thor slammed his hammer into the flying concrete, it exploded into dust. A blanket of fine gray settled onto Thor, Loki, and their surroundings.

There was no time for Steve to feel relief; Bruce had already redirected his rage. A length of scaffolding extended his reach and he swatted at Tony with the jagged end of the metal. The others began to converge on Bruce, taking action now that the demonstration had gone off the rails. Before they could get close, however, Tony zipped himself well within Bruce’s grabbing range and shouted something. 

Bruce swelled, his bulk increasing along with his speed. He struck out and closed his hand around Tony’s chest. 

Sparks bounced from Steve’s cheeks as he pounded the spell keeping him from doing anything useful.

Bruce punched Tony halfway through the blank wall where he had ripped the scaffolding free. The gym shuddered again. Tony was speaking, not shouting, and his rapid-fire words were having an effect on Bruce. He grew larger, his skin stretched tighter, and he snarled in Tony’s face. Shards of cinder block from the surrounding wall rained to the floor. Steve just hoped that Tony’s armor spell held up. 

The others stood in a half-circle around Bruce, just out of arm’s reach, and prepared weapons. With Tony as hostage, though, they held their fire.

Or, perhaps they were waiting for whatever Tony was going to do. Tony’s arms were free, even if he looked like he could barely breathe, and he slapped one hand against the wall next to him. Deep red spell energy spidered up the wall to the nearest intact lavender rune. The instant the energies touched, every rune up and down the walls became a thick beam that shot across the gym to sink into the far wall. 

Everything was caught in the grid. A beam sliced past Loki, clipping his spear, and the weapon dissolved into a handful of green and gold motes. Loki shook his hand free of clinging magic in disgust. Another beam cut through the barrier holding Steve and devoured it. The yellow tape turned curled and black and Steve stumbled forward, ripped his noise-canceling headphones from his ears, and took off running toward the rest of the group. 

The beam that worried him most pierced the boiling green mass that was Bruce, carried straight on through, and hit Tony square in the chest. 

Bruce popped. The runic beam burst the skin holding in the uncontrolled magic and it exploded outward in all directions. A heartbeat later, the beam arrested the green cloud’s outward momentum and reversed it, sucking every spec of magic back down into itself and siphoning it away. Bruce dropped before Steve or any of the others could get close. He laid quiet and still on the matting. Steve sped up, drawing on instinctual magic and his summer military regime, and leapt the hole in the floor Bruce had created. He dodged past the others just as they began to move forward. The red drained from Tony’s armor. The armor itself drained into the runic beam.

Without Bruce’s arm to hold Tony up and without his armor to wedge him into the hole, gravity took over. Tony peeled from the wall, his sneakers scrabbling against concrete that crumbled beneath his feet, and fell fifteen feet into Steve’s arms. 

Steve’s momentum carried them both into the wall with a thump. He managed to swing his shoulder around to take the impact, but Tony yelped as they hit and wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck. The runic beams died as Tony’s spell failed. 

Steve rebounded from the wall and staggered back. The warm skin of Tony’s arm laid across the back of Steve’s bare neck. The vision swamped Steve. He wavered on his feet, staring wide-eyed at Tony. Tony stared back, brows drawn together like Steve was more of a puzzle than he anticipated. 

Unlike the shift in forms that accompanied either of Steve’s previous visions, Tony’s was himself - brighter and more real than in life, but still intrinsically Tony: human with light leaking through a hundred or more tiny cracks in the skin. Human with a heart beating raw and red and visible through the shattered remnants of a ribcage. Each pulse spattered the floor with browning blood, its futile attempts to pump doing little but give vision-Tony the ragged lines of strain.

The vision only partially faded. Tony fought Steve’s carry, shoving at his chest with an elbow. He disentangled his arms and squirmed like a reluctant cat to make Steve to release his princess hold and drop him. Even with Tony unprotected and unprepared, the fall didn’t seem to have done him any damage. Steve set him on his feet with care. 

He wasn’t careful enough, however. Tony flung out an arm for balance and clocked Steve in the jaw hard enough to leave a bruise. Recovering, Steve grasped his shoulder to help him regain his balance. Their eyes met for a second. Steve swallowed his apologies and stepped back.

After one last measuring look at Steve, Tony’s attention fixed on the groggy-looking Bruce as Thor propped him upright. He skidded to a stop on Bruce’s other side and curled an arm around his shoulders. “Hey, hey, you with me?” 

Steve stood behind Tony as the others gathered. Across the gym, Coulson trotted up to Fury.

Everyone formed a loose ring around Bruce and the kneeling Tony and Thor. Tony patted one of Bruce’s cheeks. “You okay, buddy?” 

“I couldn’t-” Bruce slurred.

“We know,” Tony supplied when Bruce couldn’t quite finish his sentence. “Surprised us at the end there.” 

“Tried to flip back earlier. Felt it building and couldn’t do anything, even when the game went on too long.” Bruce scrubbed at his face with both hands, worse for the wear. Every breath not clogged with green pea soup, however, gave him strength and he sat now without leaning on anyone. Tony dropped his arm and sat back on calves.

“Them’s the breaks. You’ll figure it out next time.” Tony sounded relieved and cheerful and infinitely reassuring, but Steve could almost still see the hundreds of tiny cracks in Tony’s skin and the blood pooling at his feet. This particular vision was lingering long past when it should have faded. Tony made a show of studying the damaged wall and said, “But maybe give it a week until next time, big guy. We might need some spackle for the gym.” 

Bruce grunted. He wore a small smile, though. His gaze drifted from Tony up to Steve standing behind him. “What do you think?” Bruce asked him, the wry twist he’d given to everything at lunch back. There was an undercurrent to the question, though, and it left Bruce sounding bruised and guilty. 

The answer Steve couldn’t give aloud was that he had stayed in that little room with it’s never-ending dossiers not because he agreed with anyone else’s plans for him, but because of the fragile look in Bruce’s eyes and the tiny fading fissures still scattered across Tony’s skin. If being unlocked was the only way he would be able to put himself where he was needed- 

“I made the right choice,” Steve said, his voice low. “That’s what I think.” 

Before anyone could react to his words, Fury’s voice cut across the gym. “Mr. Stark. Where the hell did you learn a trick like that?” 

Tony flinched back from the question and hit Steve’s legs with his shoulder blades. He recovered swiftly and quipped back, “It’s my hobby.”

“Do I need to tell you how many laws of magic you just violated with that little stunt?” Fury halted at the edge of the circled students, just out of reach of Natasha and Loki where they stood shoulder to shoulder to keep him from getting to Bruce. Fury wasn’t interested in the unlocked who had just destroyed half his gym. He was interested in Tony. Steve frowned as Fury continued, “Not only did you hijack someone else’s spell, you changed the parameters of active magic, repaired a damaged spell-net on the fly, and you used a fucking computer to do it.” 

“Sometimes I’ve done as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Tony scrambled up off of his knees and, with one last pat on Bruce’s shoulder, shoved his way between Natasha and Loki to square off against Fury. “Bruce went all Hulk on us. I did as I thought best.” 

“Your best nearly got you killed.” 

“I didn’t see you doing anything. Aren’t you supposed to be, like, our sensei or some shit? What the hell kind of teacher are you?” Tony snapped, defensive. “Where were you when he ripped the bars from the cage?” 

“Unable to do anything because someone didn’t get the fuck out of the way like he’d been taught.” 

“My way didn’t hurt him. Didn’t hurt anyone. Last time Bruce was hospitalized. Those sedatives nearly killed him. He hasn’t had time to mix up a better set yet, and you want to use the old and busted shit on him again.” 

“You have been deliberately withholding your capabilities. You’re becoming unpredictable, and I can’t stress how dangerous unpredictability is for the unlocked,” Fury threw a flat look at the Tony-shaped hole in the wall. “Thinking you know better than everyone else is a path with a bad end, especially with the way your mind works, Stark.”

Steve rubbed the bruise he could feel spreading on his jaw and decided he’d had enough. “Sir,” he interrupted. He moved forward between the others to stand next to Tony. Fury directed his one eye at Steve and waited. Steve hesitated. “What’s Bruce’s focus?” 

Taken aback, Fury studied him for a long minute. “His own body. Ms. Danvers is the same way. Some people don’t need an external focus.” 

“I see,” Steve said. He looked around at the rest of them, a slow, easy sweep of the assembled before he asked, “What’s mine, then?” 

“How the hell should I know?” Fury said. “You’ll manifest one if you need one.”

Steve nodded. “Why the medieval melee? A better showcase of their skills would have been to send them out one at a time.” 

“My files on you say you have the ability to adapt. Did you have trouble? Are my files wrong?” Fury said, tetchy.

“No. One last question,” Steve said. At his side, Tony shifted. Steve became aware that the others were all watching him with the same baffled looks on their faces, all except for Loki and Natasha. “Why are we being trained to be sent out against other unlocked?” 

Fury’s irritation with Steve’s derailment dropped. His tone became deceptively mild. “Is that what I’m doing?” At Fury’s side, Coulson fidgeted and looked like he wanted to voice his objections. “I thought I was providing an environment wherein you lot could do your thing without risking the accidents getting people killed.” 

“Then why is the Stark unlocking program in bed with the military?” 

“I educate kids, Rogers,” Fury said. 

Steve narrowed his eyes and jutted his chin.

“Hey, Steve,” Tony said, elbowing him in the ribs. 

Steve peeled himself away from his staring contest with Fury and raised his eyebrows. 

Tony was still panting from his exertions. He didn’t bother to drop his voice, just gestured to the rest of them ranged behind. “We’re unlocked. With what we know, do you think we can be forced to do anything we don’t want? Those two?” Tony pointed to where Thor was still kneeling next to Bruce, and to Loki who was casually shaping his nails on his re-manifested spearhead. “Or Nat? Or Carol? Or, hell, even Clint? Seriously? You’re the only one here beholden to the military.”

 _Beholden_. “I-” Steve began, a chill running down his spine. “I didn’t-”

A lazy smile slid onto Tony’s face and, with every bit of the same careless attitude with which he flirted and toyed with a monstrous Bruce, he added, “And to Stark Industries, like it or not. We’re each here at Triskelion for our own reasons, no matter what plans anyone else has.” He tipped his head back and directed his casual challenge towards Coulson and Fury.

Fury’s neutral expression didn’t waver. 

Tony shrugged and turned back to Steve. “So that means I get to ask you, what are you doing here, Rogers? Why’d you throw in with dear old dad?” 

Flexing his jaw, Steve swallowed all of the actual responses he could have given and said, “That’s none of your business.”

“Fine, sure,” Tony agreed, amiable, but it was a trap. Steve could feel the snare tightening. “But out of all of us, only you and me had motives. Mine are all bullshit. Just wondering what yours were.” 

“You don’t get to pass judgment on how ‘legitimate’ my reasons are,” Steve protested. He squared off against Tony. He was taller, broader, and Tony had his hands shoved in his pockets, the very picture of insouciance. Steve folded his arms across his chest. “Who do you think you are?” 

“I unlocked myself, alright?” Tony flung the words at him. “Long before it should have been possible. So believe me when I tell you that I know precisely how the process goes down and just how wrong you find out all your assumptions are the minute the power hits. You can’t tell me your priorities now are the same as they were before.”

As the spell overlaying the dossiers he had on each of his unlocked peers dissipated, a sense of unease coiled in his gut. He had never seen a file on Tony. “They’re stronger,” Steve said, but he wondered. 

Sarcasm thick, Tony said, “Wow! That’s great. Good for you.” 

“Children,” Fury broke in. “Playtime’s over. Bell’s about to ring. Get the fuck out of my gym.” 

Steve and Tony turned as one to glower at Fury.

“Neither of you get to give me that look,” Fury told them. “I have better shit to do than listen to the pair of you argue. Mr. Banner needs attention and you two are standing in my way.” 

Steve glanced over at Tony, not sure how he’d managed to forget that they had an audience. He really hadn’t put any of his best feet forward today. He dropped his arms to his sides and took a series of calming breaths. Tony looked like he wanted to continue, but Bruce and his ragged breathing took precedence. Tony threw a word over his shoulder at Nat and Loki. 

Both of them took their time in letting Fury past, two cats that had to decide it was their own idea. Fury helped Bruce to his feet just as the bell rang for passing period. 

It was time to cut his losses. Steve turned from the group. He made for his backpack and the still-smoking, no-longer-yellow tape. 

Fury shouted at his back as he walked away. “Sort yourselves out. Unlocked don’t have the luxury of being shit at solving conflicts before they boil over into fights.” 

Steve hunched his back against the implied reprimand and did not turn around when he said, “Yes, sir.”


	5. Special Event Pass

Steve held the ladder steady while Tony climbed the rungs to hang the next section of garland. The cafeteria had a skywalk, an avenue of carpet and thick railing the size of a hallway that went from the upper story on one side of the cafeteria to the other. The bottom of the skywalk sported hooks sunk into the concrete for the purpose, so it was only a matter of looping a rope of fake pine needles over one, moving the ladder three feet, and repeating the process for the length of the cafeteria. The vaulted space was otherwise empty, the rest of Pepper’s recruits scattered elsewhere across the school making the place festive and bright. 

Students crossing overhead on the skywalk walked with purpose, avoiding what few teachers had periods free to stalk the halls, and when Pepper passed by on her way to a spot of troubled holly and queried them as to whether or not they had jobs, they claimed they did. Loudly. A moment later, a shout came from down the hall on the upper level. Rather than call them on the lie, Pepper left the students to their loitering to dash out of sight. The cluster of underclassmen scurried off to lessen the risk of getting caught a second time. 

Steve was left alone with a ladder, a hundred yards of plastic pine garland, and Tony.

Over the last week, while the bruise on Steve’s chin healed and the Societal Integration gym was getting repairs, he hadn’t actually seen much of Tony. He had split his lunches between Pepper’s table and trying to get to know the other unlocked who sat behind the planter. Bucky hadn’t shown up, nor had the mystery-man Rhodey. Neither had Tony. 

Steve learned that Natasha had a wicked (slightly Russian) sense of humor and that Clint could get himself in trouble with Fury just by breathing (though usually words were also involved). He learned that Carol was JROTC like the absent boys, but she was on a program track they were making up as they went along and didn’t often go to the usual lunch runs. He got stared down by everyone when Loki wore a skirt to school and was a girl for both that day and the next, then someone gave someone else a signal that Steve didn’t get and everyone started to refer to her as ‘he’ again. Thor brought in a pineapple upside-down cake that just about killed Steve with its sugar content, Bruce skipped a day and came back with an ugly scarf he refused to take off, and Jane promised to let him know the next time she went to the local planetarium during their artist’s night so he could prove to himself that he didn’t have to be both unlocked and cut off from functional society. Darcy showed him her high scores in both her favorite phone game and her political science classes while popping her gum and explaining the progress of a new bill for the unlocked traveling through the Senate. 

He met someone named Sam who seemed friendly enough, and a girl named Maria who told him to his face that she was reserving judgment until she knew him better. And - last but not least - Pepper had summarily ‘volunteered’ him for her school spirit squad - which mean she could pull him out of class whenever she wanted someone to perform menial tasks. 

Steve’s week had flown by and the overwhelmed feeling of being at the Triskelion had yet to fade. Pepper’s decoration task force was a welcome reprieve from classes he could barely concentrate on. Being inundated with _people_ after months of near-isolation left him dizzy and drained. At this point he was just grateful just to be able to stand, hold the ladder, and watch Tony climb up and down in well-fit jeans. As an artist, his admiration was for purely aesthetic reasons. That was his story and he was sticking to it. 

The garland was full of dust that released whenever Tony heaved on the mass still in the box. Steve sneezed in the cloud that drifted down.

The ladder rocked. Steve had a moment of panic that it was going to fall over, but it was just Tony descending so they could move to a new spot. When he recovered from his scare found Tony watching him with tired eyes. 

They hadn’t said much to each other - hadn’t said anything to each other at all - since their argument after the Hulk Debacle. Passing him in the halls didn’t seem the time, and Tony hadn’t slept into Steve’s Runes and Channeling class again since that first day. His only opportunities would have been at lunch or after school, and Tony simply hadn’t been around. The others had been cagey when Steve asked about it, which Steve took to mean that Tony was avoiding him, specifically.

Steve wanted to apologize, but he wasn’t quite sure what he should apologize for beyond hurt feelings. He had no idea what where he stood with Tony, not after a week of silence, and while Tony had been nothing but amiable since Pepper had assigned them to the garland crew, neither of them had said much beyond the communication needed to move the ladder and the box of dusty plastic pine. Steve scrubbed at his chin, avoiding his bruise and feeling guilty. Tony had been trying to give him an opening, and Steve had been distracted by ogling his rear.

“Sorry,” Tony said. He set his feet on the floor and leaned against the ladder. Steve wouldn’t be able to move it if he wanted to. Whatever they needed to talk about was going to happen now and Steve wasn’t going to be able to use their task as a distraction.

The apology came as a surprise. Eyebrows shooting up, Steve asked, “For what?”

Tony indicated Steve’s chin. “I clocked you good after your knight-in-shining impression and, for that, I’m sorry.” 

Steve’s lips twitched, but he quashed his smile before it showed. “’For that’, and just for that?” 

“Baby steps,” Tony said. He looked off balance, not quite sure whether or not Steve was teasing him, but he teased back with a lazy smile. “Can’t let you think you’re going to win every time.”

“Pretty sure I was on the losing end of this one,” Steve said, rubbing his fingers across the tender line of his jaw where his bruise was still fading. Tony had a hell of a lot of power behind him for being kind of wiry. “But it was an accident.” 

“Yeah,” Tony said. He folded his arms across his chest and ducked his chin. “Still.”

They stood, awkward, and stared at each other for a long count of ten. Tony watched Steve through his lashes, his lips pursed as a visual indication of his deep thought. Steve wanted to reach out and touch Tony, to smooth the exhaustion from Tony’s muscles with his fingertips, see if the spikes in his hair were crunchy or soft, and press his thumb to Tony’s pursed lips while Steve’s fingers curled beneath his jaw and he tilted Tony’s chin up. 

Steve didn’t need to query his subconscious to figure out that the sudden jumble of thoughts centered around violating the taboo that said the unlocked didn’t touch each other added up to ‘I want to kiss Tony Stark.’ The flipside of never interrogating his subconcious was that the fucker reached its conclusions at the most inopportune moments. The only reason Steve didn’t act on the impulse was that he didn’t know if the visions only happened the first time, or every time, and he’d rather get his questions answered beforehand. He wanted warning. The visions were unsettling, and he didn’t want kissing Tony to be unsettling for either of them if he could at all help it.

The metal of the ladder creaked beneath Steve’s fingers as he flexed his hands and let go. Tony’s eyes flicked down to Steve’s lips and back up to hold his gaze. The coiled sensation of waiting returned, of a fuse already lit and burning faster than anticipated. Now that Steve knew that he was legitimately being flirted with, that particular line of thought made his cheeks heat. Unlocking hadn’t dampened his hormones, whatever else had happened to him. 

The halls echoed with the sound of someone running in the distance, footsteps heavy on the carpet. A burst of laughter from an out of sight source reminded Steve that he and Tony weren’t alone, and some of Pepper’s minions passed carrying boxes full of white fluff that was either fake cobwebs or fake snow or both. They greeted Steve and Tony, took one look at the two of them standing together, and scooted out of range and out of sight behind the first bank of lockers outside the cafeteria. Tony’s smile widened as he kept his attention on Steve.

“So-” Tony said after long enough that everyone who passed through the cafeteria and by their ladder had probably picked up on the awkward sexual tension that Steve now recognized for what it was. “Pepper bitched me out for hazing you.” 

Whatever adaptability Fury thought Steve had, the context switch threw him for a good solid loop. “Is that so?” Steve asked neutrally, willing himself down from half-mast, because he _was _still angry with Tony for that little trick with the handshake.__

__Tony lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. The far side of the cafeteria was either really interesting, or he didn’t want Steve to see his face. When he spoke, he sounded like he was feeling his way through his reply. Carefully, he said, “It was a dick move not to warn you.”_ _

__Steve was at a loss. “Yes it was.”_ _

__“So, yeah, sorry about that too,” Tony said in a rush. He turned back to Steve, eyebrows furrowed, and frowned up at him. He sounded put off by Steve’s ready agreement, but he admitted, “It’s a shit tradition.”_ _

__“Baby steps,” Steve said. He took a breath and added, “Thank you.”_ _

__“Even I can learn.” Tony looked away again._ _

__Steve rubbed at the fading bruise on his chin. “Sorry for hitting a sore spot. By mentioning, um, Mr. Stark.”_ _

__“You remember that?” The ladder creaked as Tony shifted his weight. He tipped his head back so he could raise a sardonic eyebrow at Steve. “You’re one up on dear old dad with that one. Apology accepted.”_ _

__Rather than let the silence stretch and the tension between them grow - he would be revealing perhaps a bit more than he was comfortable with if he let that go on again - Steve said the first thing that came to mind. “Jane said I should ask you my questions.”_ _

__Tony, surprised, responded, “About what?”_ _

__Steve stumbled over his words, “Um, well, originally why you’d run off, but I guess that’s- well, a week ago and I kind of- I don’t want to hit another landmine and-” Steve pulled himself short and abandoned that particular line of thought. Steadying himself, he tried again. “She meant about this unlocking business. You know more about it than anyone at the school.”_ _

__“Anyone in the world,” Tony corrected him, ignoring the first half of Steve’s flailed answer. “I’m brilliant, didn’t anyone tell you?”_ _

__Steve snorted before he caught himself. “And so modest, too.”_ _

__“There’s no reason I should be where unlocking is concerned,” Tony told him. He abandoned all pretense of work and sat down on one of the lowest rungs of the ladder. He stifled a yawn. “I do owe you answers, though. Maybe it’ll make up for traumatizing you with Thor’s handshake.”_ _

__“Thank you,” Steve said. It took him a moment of thought to decide which of his questions was most pressing. “I- well, where’ve you been this week?”_ _

__“That’s your first question?” Tony asked, incredulous. “Seriously? Okay- I set up camp in the corner of Dr. Yinsen’s lab space right next to Bruce’s chemistry set. The teachers who deal with the unlocked all have shared lab space so they can try and keep ahead of our questions, but Dr. Yinsen lets me and Bruce use his. I’ve been working on something game-changing that I’m not quite ready to tell the world about and watching over Bruce’s witch’s brew. I wasn’t, um-” Tony paused and gave Steve a sheepish smile. “I wasn’t avoiding you? At least, not much?”_ _

__“I wouldn’t blame you if, hypothetically, you were.” Steve sat down on the floor next to the ladder to talk. He didn’t want Tony to have to crane his neck to face him. “I’m not the easiest to get along with.”_ _

__“Easy schmeasy.” Tony waved one hand in dismissal. “If we were easy, we wouldn’t be unlocked, or something.”_ _

__Steve chuckled. “I’m not even sure what that means, but okay.”_ _

__“It means that we’re the reason that Fury has no hair,” Tony said, leaning in with an air of conspiracy. “True facts. Swear on my life. He pulls it out because we’re so damned stressful to try and wrangle.”_ _

__“Because you put yourself in danger without a lick of self-preservation?” Steve asked, and it came out way, _way_ judgier than he’d intended. He winced._ _

__Tony winced as well, a motion subtle enough that Steve would have missed it if he hadn’t responded exactly the same way. His careless tone held a hint of strain as he sprawled back against the ladder and said, “Hey, it worked out. I don’t need to defend my actions to you.”_ _

__“You didn’t defend them to Fury, either.” Steve pulled his knees up to his chin and rested his head. “Why did he yell? I would have thought he’d be more concerned with Bruce.”_ _

__“If I decide I know best,” Tony said, “I have the means to back it up.”_ _

__Tony spoke without ostentation and made his words a simple statement of fact._ _

__“That’s-” Steve searched for words. “Dangerous.”_ _

__“Yup,” Tony agreed. “But at least most of the time I can make it so that I’m the only one who suffers if I’m wrong.”_ _

__This time Steve really did reach out. His hand came down on Tony’s sleeved shoulder. “Tony-”_ _

__Tony shrugged him off. “I’m never wrong.”_ _

__“Tony, I-” Steve began, reclaiming his hand. The sensation of being in over his head hit him hard, as did the odd note in Tony’s voice when he said he was ‘never wrong’. “How long have you been unlocked?”_ _

__The question made Tony tense. “Two, three years? Short compared to some of the others.”_ _

__“I’ve been unlocked less than six months,” Steve said. “And Stark Industries is keeping their success a secret, their military contracts for unlocking a secret, and everything that has to do with me except being here-”_ _

__“Yeah, well, Dad’s good at keeping secrets. I’m here, aren’t I? It would be the scoop of the century for some up-and-coming gadfly of a reporter. ‘Howard Stark’s kid unlocked illegally at age fourteen!’ Don’t think that wouldn’t float like a lead balloon.” Tony scrubbed at his face and stifled another yawn. “It wasn’t even his fault. I honestly think he’s trying to crack how to reverse it - for my benefit. Or his. What Board of Directors would let an early unlocked who is sixteen kinds of fucked up by definition lay their hands on Stark Industries? If he can’t sort me before I hit the papers-”_ _

__“I wouldn’t want to be locked again,” Steve interrupted. “Not now.”_ _

__“You might not have a choice. You signed a contract.” Tony shook his head. “If you’re kept hush-hush, they can roll you out as a success story if they manage to lock you again and gloss over the bit where they unlocked you in the first place as a goddamned teenager.”_ _

__Steve stared at Tony for several long moments. “They wouldn’t. The military wants soldiers.”_ _

__“Dad might. The military wants threats eliminated, and whatever way will work, right?” Tony’s bitter words went straight to Steve’s gut and curdled there. “I won’t let him try and lock me again, if it’s even possible, so he needed another kid more likely to accept the ideal image he had for me. You’re it. So sorry.”_ _

__Feeling unstable, Steve said slowly, “You unlocked yourself.”_ _

__“I beat Dad to it,” Tony said, a curl of pride in his voice. A brief smile flitted across his lips. “And just FYI, that’s a horrible reason to do anything.”_ _

__“Didn’t stop you.” Steve scrubbed at his face and ran his fingers through his hair, glad he was already sitting down. Everything Tony said sounded like a horrible soup of conspiracy theories, half of which were at odds with the hundreds of dossiers spelled into Steve’s memory. Why lock and unlock him _and_ have him memorize every unlocked on the planet’s favorite color? Every unlocked except Tony. Steve didn’t know what to believe._ _

__“Wouldn’t stop me if I had to do it again,” Tony said, flippant. “Seriously, though- best thing to ever happen to me.”_ _

__Without thinking, Steve huffed a small laugh and said, “Even if you’re sixteen kinds of fucked up?”_ _

__His attempt at teasing fell so flat that it made pancakes look mountainous. Hurt flashed across Tony’s expression only to be swiftly covered with a grimace-slash-yawn that masked any other emotion he might have betrayed._ _

__Steve immediately scrambled to try and take the words back. “Shit- no, I was trying to-” His words sounded weak to his own ears. “You said ‘by definition’-”_ _

__“Don’t,” Tony cut him off. He stripped a layer of playfulness from their interaction. Mockingly, with just enough bite to make it a legitimate question, Tony asked, “Tell me how you really feel?”_ _

__Unaccountably, the challenge combined with Tony’s withdrawal pissed Steve off. “Wait a minute-” he began._ _

__Pepper’s arrival silenced him. She strode straight over to them both sitting at the foot of the ladder with half a cafeteria’s worth of garland to put up and said, “I didn’t pull you out of class to play favorites.” She directed a stern look on Steve, shifted it to Tony, and her expression shifted rapidly to concern. “What’s wrong?”_ _

__“Nothing,” Steve said as he pushed himself back to his feet. He reined in his temper. “We were just talking.”_ _

__“Resting,” Tony said. “Talking and resting.”_ _

__Pepper didn’t look like she bought the story. Her lips slightly pursed, the lines across her forehead grew more pronounced as she frowned. She held out her hands to drag Tony upright. She finally got him standing and he wobbled. He had to catch himself on the ladder. Exasperated, she looked him up and down with a clinical eye and asked, “Have you slept?”_ _

__“Probably,” Tony said, shifting to lean against the ladder, elbows on one of the rungs. “At some point.”_ _

__“Recently?”_ _

__Tony flashed her a smile. “Answer hazy, try again later.”_ _

__“Goddamnit, Tony. I would have sent you for a nap and not up and down ladders all afternoon if I’d known you weren’t sleeping. What is it this time? A new invention? An SI summons or one from your dad? A class for once? A boy?” Pepper slid her eyes towards Steve._ _

__“Really? A class is even an option?”_ _

__“I can hope for miracles.”_ _

__Before Pepper could truly take Tony to task, Coulson, the student teacher that Steve hadn’t seen since the disastrous Societal Integration class, entered the cafeteria and called, “Pepper!” He marched his way toward their little group with purpose, hand raised in greeting._ _

__“Phil!” Pepper broke away from her back and forth with Tony. Steve let out his breath and tried to convince himself to drop his anger like Tony seemed to have dropped his._ _

__“You can’t call him Phil anymore,” Tony complained. “He’s pretending to be ‘one of them’.” He used air quotes and squinted suspiciously at Coulson when he strode to a stop in front of them. “Traitor.”_ _

__“Stop it,” Pepper said, rolling her eyes. She gave Steve an apologetic smile. “He used to go here with us. Senior to our sophomore.”_ _

__Tony rounded on Steve and said, in his best ‘you’re on my side, right?’ tone, “He then abandoned us. To throw in with Fury.”_ _

__“If one wants to major in education with an emphasis on the unlocked, there’s exactly one school in the US that gets me my student teacher credits,” Coulson said in an even, unflappable tone even though Tony was making faces that heavily implied that Steve wasn’t as worried about Coulson’s horrid betrayal as he should be._ _

__Steve ignored Tony’s antics, rolled his shoulders in an attempt to loosen some of his tension, and joined the conversation like a civilized person. He managed a smile at Coulson and said, “Must be rough being back here and not be a student.”_ _

__“You get used to it,” Coulson said with a smile. “I need Pepper to come with me, though. The DJ she wants for the dance is being surprisingly mercenary.”_ _

__“Let me guess, he wants more money because he knows he was my first choice?” Pepper asked._ _

__Phil nodded and said, “Got it in one. Shall we?”_ _

__“I just want to see his face when I tell him that I do have a second choice who has already confirmed that she’s free that night.” Pepper’s rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. Tilting her head just slightly, fingers still pressing against between her eyes, she told Tony and Steve, “Finish as much as you can before the bell and my hold on you expires. I’ll have someone else put the rest up after school. I’m not responsible for you after this period.”_ _

__“Thanks for recruiting us,” Steve said quietly, and was rewarded by a bright, genuine smile. Pepper patted Steve on the cheek._ _

__“Is this garland literally older than we are?” Tony asked Pepper when she patted him on the cheek as well. She just shook her head, amused. “There is literally an extra garland’s worth of dust in that box. Don’t think I don’t see through your attempts on my life via allergies.”_ _

__“See you later Tony. Steve,” Pepper said. Coulson dipped his head and farewell and the pair of them left the cafeteria without further fanfare._ _

__Once more, Steve and Tony were left alone together._ _

__“Sorry,” Steve said, not wanting to let their previous topic go, not until Steve had tried to fix the damage. “I didn’t mean to say you were fucked up.”_ _

__“I didn’t want you to explain.” Tony’s good humor dropped and he swiveled to face Steve, suddenly serious, and when he spoke he sounded more annoyed than self-deprecating. “I don’t want your pity. I’m fucked up, way of the world. Happens to the best of us, myself included. Drop it.”_ _

__Steve might have been inclined to accept the line Tony was feeding him if Steve hadn’t seen the hurt that Steve’s words had prompted. “You’re not fucked up, though. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t believe that.”_ _

__“What part of ‘I don’t want to talk about this’ do you not understand?” Tony demanded. His voice echoed off the cafeteria’s far walls. “Right now you’ve got your head pretty far up your own ass if you think that I’m anywhere in the vicinity of ‘not fucked up’.”_ _

__“You’ve gone through-”_ _

__“Hold the goddamned phone,” Tony interrupted. “Do not - do-fucking-not - tell me that my current level of fucked up _can’t be helped_ because of everything I’ve been through. That’s a big fucking steaming pile of bullshit. I made goddamned choices to get me where I am today, and it’s my own goddamned fault, okay?”_ _

__“Okay,” Steve repeated, a little stunned. It took him a second to gather his wits. “Except… no. Not okay. Not okay! Choices, circumstances, whatever, you’ve got a normal-for-you. Maybe that normal sucks. Maybe you can deal. But it’s not my job to make you feel like shit for doing what you think you have to do. Maybe I think your normal is fucked up, but I don’t think _you’re_ fucked up.” _ _

__The crackle of unlocked magic skittered across Tony’s eyes. The faintest shimmer of red appeared along the top of his skin, and Steve didn’t even see him whisper a spell. Tony snapped, “Are you always this condescending, or are you making a special effort just for me? You’re not better than me in this, you don’t get to look down on me from your mighty legal adult status. You didn’t suddenly become capable of making your own poor decisions at the stroke of midnight on your birthday.” Tony rocked his head back and lifted his chin. “You’ve already proved you’re just as damaged as I am simply by being here.”_ _

__Steve’s right arm itched from fingertips to elbow. The bubble of magic in his belly rose in direct response to all of the little signs of threat that Tony was throwing off. Both of them were going to end up shouting at each other at volumes the whole school would be able to hear, and Tony looked like he itched to throw a punch. “Don’t do it,” Steve warned him. With Fury’s caution about making sure to solve any sort of conflict before it became a problem, Steve had a sneaking suspicion that the unlocked didn’t throw punches without a little bit of juice to back them up. He didn’t want to learn what the itchy-magic sensation was outside of a controlled environment._ _

__“Then back the fuck off.” Tony didn’t bother to misunderstand. “It’s not your job to resuscitate my self-esteem.”_ _

__The bell for the end of the period rang before Steve could speak and the halls and cafeteria filled with other students in a steady stream. They had five minutes before they had to be elsewhere. There was no way to finish this now._ _

__“I like you, Tony,” Steve said quietly. He backed away like he should have done in the first place, hating that it felt like he was agreeing to Tony’s words. “Right now I’m so frustrated with you I want to pick you up and shake you. I wouldn’t, but I want to.”_ _

__Tony’s jaw flexed and the faint red shimmer above his skin faded. He repeated, “Not your job.”_ _

__“It’s not,” Steve said. One of the passing students kicked at the garland box and sent up a puff of dust that made half a dozen people cough as they scooted toward their next class._ _

__“We have to go.” Tony swung away from Steve without waiting for an answer._ _

__“Tony,” Steve said, low enough that Tony stopped. He didn’t turn around. There was nothing to do but speak to Tony’s back. “Can’t you see the problem?”_ _

__“It’s not a problem,” Tony told him over his shoulder. “And it’s especially not your problem.”_ _

__The crowd of students swallowed him and Steve was left alone with a ladder, a hundred yards of plastic pine garland, and his thoughts._ _


	6. Studio Art

The art classroom smelled strongly of burnt paper when Steve arrived to find the a handful of his classmates huddled around a metal trash can in the middle of the room. The alarm on the ceiling had a bucket taped over it, and an industrial strength fan blew the black smoke out the window. Steve stood in the doorway, holding his backpack. The art teacher was nowhere to be seen, and the bell hadn’t rung, but there were at least six other students huddled over the flames and periodically ripping off another leaf of notebook paper to drop in. Two of them looked visibly nervous, and one kept glancing up at the intercom where the period bell would normally sound from.

Steve shrugged and entered. The hall behind him remained noisy, students jostling into the classroom and the nearby ones as swiftly as possible. He dropped his backpack in a chair and wandered over to where everyone was burning their homework. “What’s going on?” 

One of the pyromaniacs snapped his head up, eyes wide. “Steve?” he exclaimed. “Holy shit, Steve!” 

“Bucky?” Steve asked. He barely had time enough to get his arms out of the way before Bucky barreled into him and nearly knocked him off his feet. 

“Holy shit,” Bucky repeated. His hug squeezed the air from Steve’s lungs and left him gasping. “What are you doing here? Last I heard you’d were still in Brooklyn.” He let Steve go, but not far. Keeping one hand wrapped around Steve’s upper arm, he pounded on his shoulder with the other hard enough to leave a bruise. With all of Bucky’s new muscles, it would have if Steve had been the same kid he had been last time Bucky had seem him. 

Steve grinned at his friend’s enthusiasm. Bucky was shorter than Steve now that he’d hit his growth spurt, but the scruffiness Steve remembered had matured into physical power and presence, and he didn’t yet seem to know his own strength. “I didn’t think you’d remember me.” 

“Remember? What a thing to say. Mum still sets a place for you every Sunday by mistake. What the hell happened to you? You’re all larger than life.” 

“I go to Triskelion?” Steve offered. That was all he managed before Bucky stepped back, a wariness descending as he put two and two very firmly together. He left his hand on Steve’s arm, but now it felt more like he was holding Steve at arms length than making sure he was real. The other students still clustered around the trash fire with their hands out began to mind their own business. Maybe half of them were from Steve’s class. The other half were probably from the period before. None of them were more familiar than names as of yet, and Steve felt a pang of self-consciousness.

Bucky chewed over Steve’s news. “You’re the school’s new unlocked,” he said, slow and with deepening concern. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I signed up for an experimental procedure.” Steve really didn’t want to talk here in front of an unknown audience. Dropping his voice would feel too much like being ashamed for his taste, though. “The procedure was more successful than the papers would have you believe.”

“Ho-ly shit,” Bucky said again, each syllable deliberate. “So no disaster? No pushy self-styled wizard wanting a guinea pig? You’re- you’re alright?” His fingers around Steve’s arm’s tightened. 

Steve forced a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little bit overwhelmed.” 

Finally releasing Steve, Bucky slapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll get used to it.” 

There was a touch of distance in the familiar gesture; neither of them were the people they’d been. For all that Steve didn’t blame him, though, he still mourned. The slender lifeline to the past that Bucky had represented for all of a week was now gone. They were going to have to start over again, to feel out how to be friends and brothers. In a way it was fitting: Steve was starting over with his entire life anyway.

Steve stepped back and let out his breath, willing himself not to let any of his disappointment show on his face. He shouldn’t have placed so many of his hopes on the rare chance the two of them could have picked up where they left off. “Yeah. I guess I’ll have to.” Not wanting to dwell, at least not here, he shook off the moment and turned his gaze toward the trash-can fire. “Do I want to ask?” 

“Art,” Bucky deadpanned.

The intercom came on: “Would Rogers, Steve, please come to the cafeteria? Rogers, Steve, please come to the cafeteria as soon as possible.” 

Steve frowned up at the intercom, then turned to speak to Bucky only to find his friend had paled. The scattered blemishes and black dust of peach fuzz stood out against his pale skin. “What?” Steve asked. 

“Get the fuck to the cafeteria. Now,” Bucky said, planting a hand on either of Steve’s shoulders and shoving him toward the door. “Leave your shit unless you’re carrying something an unlocked would need.”

“I was paged and this is the reaction?” Steve dug in his heels. “What’s going on?” 

“They don’t make formal announcements when this thing happens. They just make - shit - formal announcements. You know what I mean. Formal. Last name first. Of one of the unlocked.”

Unease squeezed Steve’s chest and made it hard to breathe. “But why?” 

“Because one of the other unlocked is having a meltdown and Fury doesn’t have it under control. Paging the school means they need you in and everyone else out yesterday.”

“Bruce,” Steve said, dumbfounded. 

Pepper and everyone else had reassured him that the school was used to it, that they all kept their eyes out for the unlocked, that it was part community and part self-preservation, but Steve hadn’t really understood how deep the loyalty of Triskelion students to their own went. He’d said something to Tony an hour or so ago about ‘new normal’. Intercom announcements in code were fucked up and completely normal, and even though Bucky looked more than a little worried, he wasn’t surprised. If anything, he looked determined, and almost all of his determination was focused on Steve.

“Bruce?” Bucky echoed with a slight frown. “Probably. Doesn’t matter, though. Go. Now. The rest of us are going into unofficial lockdown. There will be another announcement if there’s splash from the cafeteria, then we’ll have to go into the kind of lockdown we have to report.” 

“You’re used to this,” Steve said. He stooped to grab his backpack off the chair. He couldn’t recall if there was anything in it that might help, but better to have it with him than not if he did remember something.

“And what’s the alternative?” Bucky said, exasperated. He steered Steve toward the door. “Better having us all trained for this kind of thing than ship you someplace where nobody knows how to handle how goddamned scary you lot are. How long do you think you’d last in a cage, and how much more fucked up would you be when they let you out? Plus I wouldn’t get to risk life and limb trying to convince Nat to make out. Get the fuck to the cafeteria.” 

Steve stumbled out the door of the art room and slung his backpack onto his shoulders. “Point taken,” he said and adjusted his straps. “Thanks.” Anything else he had to say would have to wait until whatever was happening in the cafeteria had been dealt with. He took off running down the hall, skidded around the corner, and flashed past bank after bank of lockers on his way towards the cafeteria. 

The halls were empty, even more empty than they usually would be during passing period. Except… it wasn’t passing period anymore and Steve had never heard the period bell go off. Another new-normal indicator of something wrong that Steve hadn’t yet learned how to read. The rapid file of the students to their classrooms after the bell should have rung took on new meaning. The quiet was eerie - especially because it was broken by periodic explosions interspersed with roars. Bruce. Steve pushed himself faster. 

He skidded to a stop at the edge of the cafeteria. The lower level entrances were below the skywalk, and Steve paused there to take stock of the situation before he charged in and very likely got himself killed.

Bruce boiled larger and greener than when he’d tried to smash Tony into the wall in the special gym. He towered over the others, a good several feet taller even than Thor, and with the skywalk bisecting the cafeteria and the dozens of support pillars in too narrow a configuration for him to move through, he was trapped in the side with the massive bank of windows that all looked especially breakable today. The Christmas tree display that Pepper had put up sometime after when he’d been here earlier had been snapped in half and shredded, and some of the plastic garland that Tony and Steve had failed to hang had wrapped around one of Bruce’s legs. The scarf Bruce had been wearing the entire week was still wrapped around his neck. 

The other unlocked had reached the cafeteria before him. Natasha was nowhere to be seen, but then neither was Clint. Only the presence of Nat’s abandoned heeled boots next to the planter spoke to either of their presences. The reflection of Loki’s green and gold magic flickered from the glass. She stood on the skywalk, casting barriers that paused Bruce an instant at a time, just enough to slow him. Carol stayed behind Bruce, out of his line of sight and up in the air, and caught his every backswing in a flash of yellow light so that he wouldn’t hit anything when he wound up. From how well the cafeteria was holding up against rampaging magic, Carol and Loki were doing a damn good job. 

Where the two girls were trying to keep him slow, Thor and Tony were trying to keep Bruce’s attention on them. Thor had his hammer and whatever other magics that kept him whole and hale when Bruce’s fist came down on his head. Tony, whenever Bruce’s attention would waver from Thor, would flash by and catch his big, green eye and swing it back down toward one tall Asgardian target and Bruce would strike again. 

The plan was a waiting game with the goal to wear Bruce out until he burned through his reserve energy and passed out. The whole thing looked practiced, choreographed, even, but something was visibly wrong. Bruce wasn’t slowing. Everyone else was. They had called Steve in even though he was the only one who hadn’t practiced whatever dance they were doing. By all rights he should be more of a hindrance than a help.

Bruce scooped up a chair and threw it hard at the windows. Steve flinched, covering his face with his arm and waited for a the sound of shattering glass that never came. The chair bounced from the windows in a flash of lavender light. A quick glance across the cafeteria showed him Fury, hands up and mouth moving as he kept the school intact while Bruce’s friends tried to calm him down. 

It wasn’t working. Somehow, something was feeding Bruce’s strength. Bruce reached for Thor to grab and squeeze, but Carol pulled his arm back at the last moment. His fingers closed on nothing. He roared again. The others were doing little more than pissing him off. Steve narrowed his eyes and studied their tactics for another few heartbeats. Each of them were trapped in their roles, and every time Tony tried to fly up and out to do something fancy, the other points preventing Bruce from breaking free faltered trying to compensate for the hole he left. Keeping Bruce in place took precedence over shutting him down, and they were almost too well-choreographed, even Tony. There wasn’t enough redundancy in their tactics to allow for rapid modification. Each of them kept trying to do something different, something new, but Bruce didn’t give them enough time. None of them were timid, but there was too little room for error. 

A flash of color off to the side of the cafeteria behind a pair of knocked-over tables caught Steve’s eye. He dropped his backpack and let instinct take over. The edges of the cafeteria were lined with broken tables and chairs shoved up against the wall as if hit by a wave. A blast of something yellow from down Carol’s way flooded the room with light bright enough that he had to throw an arm in front of his eyes until it dimmed again.

An arrow flew from no source that Steve could see and somehow Bruce saw it before it hit him in the ass. He slapped it away. The arrowhead broke on the floor with a plastic crunch and a gurgle. Tranquilizers. Clint needed a better shot vector than that, though. Preferably one that had a chance of hitting. Steve’s eyes flicked to the skywalk and Loki. The only question was why Clint wasn’t already up there lining up a shot. 

Steve hurdled some of the larger pieces and slid to the corner where the tables provided cover. He found Natasha there with a small gaggle of students, freshman and sophomores, who’d managed to find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. The only one Steve knew was Darcy. He asked her and Natasha, “What happened?” 

“Spoon,” Darcy said. “He dropped a spoon.” Without her gum and phone and with her glasses askew, she looked young.

Natasha shook her head. “This week… he’s been wound tight because of the holidays. Final straw, last nail. Nothing that would have bothered him had it not been ‘family family family’ time of year.” She let out her breath in a frustrated hiss. “I have been sneaking these ones out as my priority. I cannot get close to him, he is too paranoid that someone should sneak up on him. Even if I could, he has done something. His skin does not allow the needles to enter.” 

“Don’t blame him,” Steve muttered under his breath, earning a sour look from Natasha. “What do you need?” 

“Clint took his shots from the skywalk, they hit square on and just… bounced. He has been systematically trying different points for weakness, but we do not have an infinite amount of tranquilizer arrows. We need a counterspell, which means we need Loki.”

“And Clint needs the angle, so he’ll need a lift to the skywalk-” Steve nodded. The magic in the air bled into his skin and made his arm itch again. He scratched it, mind elsewhere as he broke down the current problem. “Tony can carry, and Carol and Thor have the strength to slow him, but not to hold him if he tries to attack one or the other. They would need to defend themselves.” Steve looked to Natasha for confirmation of his evaluations. 

Natasha nodded and spread her hands. “I can distract and evade when he comes after me, but I think that is not what we need.” 

“Distract and evade, yes,” Steve said. The green mist curled up from the floor to swirl around Bruce’s ankles. “That’s actually exactly what I want. Can we communicate?” 

“I can. One of Tony’s spells. What am I to communicate?” 

“Tell Tony that he’ll see the opening to grab Clint and drop him up by Loki. They have a counterspell and a tranq dart they need to do something about. Carol and Thor get ready to hold. You get ready to claim his attention.” 

Natasha narrowed her eyes. “And you?” 

Theory of magic said that the unlocked would manifest spells when the individual was under duress. Steve figured that a big green fist heading for his face would probably count. “Just be ready to evade. You just said that you only needed a moment where he’s not attacking any of the rest of you, right?” 

“This is the stupidest plan I have ever heard,” Natasha told him. “You have no training. No spells.” 

“Yeah, but if everything works out, I won’t need any. Hell, Darcy could do this part and she’d be fine.” 

With a scoff, Natasha shook her head and said, “Bruce would paste her.” 

“Bruce would paste me,” Darcy repeated, indignant. The other underclassmen clustered behind her, flinching every time Thor’s hammer met Bruce’s flesh with a whack. They looked scared, but also ready and willing to follow whatever orders Natasha - and by extension Steve - had for them. “Why are you volunteering me?” 

“I’m not!” Steve told her. The ebb and flow of the fight had changed little during the course of their brief back and forth. They might have time before something else gave, but not much. They were creeping up on the point where Tony had flagged during the demonstration. All of them were probably feeling fatigue. “Natasha, relay?” 

Natasha nodded and spoke quietly to herself for a few moments. There was no obvious change in the roar and splash of fire, but after a moment she nodded. “They say they will do this thing.” There was a snapping sound as the windows another hit, and this time the thrown chair resulted in a nasty spiderweb crack. He heard Thor swear. Thor never swore. There was going to be a problem sooner rather than later.

“Good. Just don’t let him turn away until I’m the new target.” 

“What about us?” Darcy demanded.

“Stay here, don’t move until Natasha comes for you. We’re running out of time,” Steve said, squaring his shoulders. He needed to be able to stand his ground in front of the Hulk, whether or not Bruce actually made it to him. He was wagering that Bruce wouldn’t, and that if he did, that he could take the hit. Thor and Carol should be able to hold Bruce if Steve was the focus, but the whole plan involved a lot of ‘ifs’. And if Steve took a hit, any hit, Bruce would be loose, and the underclassmen would be right there like tiny, juicy punching bags. “Get them gone after Bruce stops coming after you. Until then- whenever you’re ready, Romanoff.”

The look Natasha gave him, surprise followed rapidly by realization, registered only briefly. She gave him a crisp nod and popped out of sight. One of the underclassmen squeaked and covered his head. Darcy just patted him like a puppy and told him to hush. She gave Steve a thumbs-up as soon as everyone had quieted.

Steve stepped out into chaos. The air was thick with magic that couldn’t vent until Fury removed the protections keeping the school-building intact. Unlike the gym, the cafeteria didn’t have the big runes on all the walls that grounded and siphoned the energy of expended magic. He was hit full in the face by an off-gas of blue vapors from Tony’s flyby. Coughing and squinting into the particolored haze, he shook himself and bounced on the balls of his feet to loosen himself up for the go.

The haze cleared a bit and he saw Natasha pop back into view and complete a leaping arc in front of Bruce’s nose that pulled his eyes from Thor. One of her wrist contraptions flared bright white and went off in Bruce’s face. He voiced his displeasure in a roar that rattled the windows, and Natasha tucked her head to perform a forward roll that would make a gymnast proud. Her momentum carried her back to her feet to run straight at Steve. 

“I hope you know what you are doing,” she shouted at him, her voice hoarse. Without anywhere to go, the magic was thickening like smoke and making it hard to breathe. 

Bruce was a step behind her and she flashed past Steve and disappeared from view, leaving Steve the only one in Bruce’s view. He jumped and waved his hands, trying to keep Bruce’s attention. Tony scooped a kicking Bruce and deposited him on the skywalk with Loki. Both readied themselves for the one-two of counterspell-tranq. Off to either side, Carol and Thor took their positions and threw themselves at Bruce. 

Another step and Bruce would be on Steve, his massive green fists curled in anticipation. The mild look of tiny, human Bruce was in no way evident. This was full Jekyll and Hyde with no evidence that Bruce had any inkling of what he was doing. He’d said before that he’d been in there, trying to control everything, but Steve wasn’t seeing any sign of the same now. He had a brief moment to wonder what had happened before Bruce wound up to swing.

For an instant, Steve thought Thor and Carol would be too late and he pulled his arm up to protect his face. The roil of his own unlocked magic itched for an outlet. 

Carol caught one arm, Thor the other, and the blow never fell. Bruce went to turn on both of them, but Steve lit his hands with the fire spell he knew and waved them like a man directing airplanes. Another lunge on Bruce’s part pulled Thor and Carol half off their feet, yet Bruce’s attention remained on Steve. Another second. Two. Bruce would catch on and shake the others off. Steve gambled on the simple ‘line of sight’ rule for fights of passion, and right now Bruce was the very image of the vision that Steve had had, and that had been a vision of pure rage. As long no-one stepped between them, Bruce would stay focused on him.

There was a splash of green and gold across the curve of Bruce’s shoulders - the counterspell. In the heartbeat before Steve heard the twang of Clint’s bow, however, all hell descended on the cafeteria. 

The loose magic filling the room combusted, the density too great to be stable. A mini big-bang of rapidly condensing and exploding magic sent a shockwave through the room that shredded the counterspell, fried Clint’s arrow midair, and knocked both Carol and Thor enough off balance that their hold on Bruce slipped. The magic crashed through Steve and unbalanced him, continuing on to snap and mangle the the tables that Darcy and the other students had been using for cover. There were no screams to accompany the sound of splintering wood and twisting metal.

Steve braced himself for the hit now that Bruce’s arms were free. The loose magic in the air made him itch all over, but there he didn’t know how he was supposed to use it. Out of the corner of his eye was a flurry of movement.

Bruce saw it as well. He tore his gaze away and after a brief, evaluating glance, lunged to the side. Without hesitation, Steve followed. The invisibility spell that was Natasha’s forte had been destroyed by the shockwave, and the conga line of terrified underclassmen - Darcy leading the charge, Natasha spurring them from the rear - were now exposed where they scurried along the wall toward the skywalk and the doorway out. 

Carol stomped hard on fake pine garland still trailing from Bruce’s leg and he stumbled. The moment it took before the plastic snapped was just the moment Steve needed to get in front of the fleeing underclassmen first. 

Barely able to face Bruce before the big green fist came at his head, Steve whipped him arm up to protect himself from the blow. The magic he didn’t know what to do with finally boiled over. 

Bruce’s fist came down on the convex surface of a bullseye shield, smack in the center of the target rings. The manifestation of magic crackled up Steve’s arm, as did the jolt from halting the downswing. His shoulder went numb and he dropped to one knee with the sudden weight bearing him to the floor. Small pockets of thunder rolled through the cafeteria like tympani blows as the loose magic in the room continued to explode in a series of localized secondary reactions. 

“I’ve got you, Bruce,” Steve said. He shoved his shoulder under his shield to keep it steady. “I’ve got them, but I’ve also got you.” 

The weight on Steve’s shield increased as Bruce leaned down hard. Footsteps behind Steve and out of his field of vision grew more faint until at last Steve heard Natasha call, “Clear!” Still Bruce didn’t move, seemingly more intent on squashing Steve to the floor with mass and gravity alone than on chasing after squeaking underclassmen. 

Steve groaned, but held his ground. His joints creaked. Without any of the spells to give him the flair of indestructibility like Thor, he was just a guy from Brooklyn who couldn’t feel his shield arm and was about to collapse beneath the slow, steady press of weight.

A mass of red zipped through Steve’s periphery and the buzz of propulsion magic heralded Tony as he flared his boot jets and nipped his way beneath Bruce’s bulk. Armor or no armor, anyone who depended on aerial agility to mitigate damage had no business being within crushing range of the Hulk’s massive green gorilla arms. 

The warning that Steve intended to call was swallowed by his instinctive gasp of relief as Bruce’s fist lifted from his shield. He was forced to watch in horror as Bruce wrapped his arms around Tony’s spelled shell, trapping one of his arms and lifting him off his feet. 

“Hot out of the oven,” Tony told Bruce. He punched at the fleshy part of Bruce’s shoulder with his free hand. “Your easy-bake takes forever, cupcake.” 

A glare of light off of a needle had Steve scrambling forward, certain that failure would mean one fresh-squeezed can of Tony, “It won’t go in-” 

Before he could finish, Tony sank the tip of the needle deep into the green flesh he had been aiming for. He depressed the plunger more slowly than Steve’s thundering heart thought was wise, but Bruce let him. He didn’t squeeze any more than necessary to keep Tony in the air. 

Bruce’s eyes slid shut and he went down to be caught by a ready Tony, the magic trapped beneath his skin venting into the air like a genie escaping from its bottle. The bank of windows Fury had tried to hard to protect blew out with a thunderous crash, and glass rained down on the group as the air cleared.


	7. Winter Dance

The cafeteria looked completely different in part thanks to Pepper’s attempts to decorate. The plywood-covered bank of windows had been enthusiastically painted by the art classes over the course of the week leading up to the Winter Dance, and the there were masterpieces of festive holiday cheer reaching up three stories. The reindeer chasing Krampus with a flame-throwing menorah was a nice touch. Steve took a picture of that particular image on his phone before the lights dimmed for the party proper and it faded into one of the dark upper corners.

Steve leaned against the wall next to the punch bowl, guarding the refreshments lest any of the students that Pepper had chosen to help her set up got any ideas. The lights strung across the dance floor flickered to life just as the DJ spun up his first song of the night.

For all the problems that Fury’s ‘fuck collateral damage’ spell had caused, the school remained structurally sound and mostly intact, and if not for the plywood, there would be no sign of Bruce’s be-Hulked rampage. The amount of resilience Triskelion had for near-disasters boggled Steve’s mind. The garland along the bottom of the skywalk had been replaced with something newer and less dusty, and the Midwinter Holiday Tree with it’s multi-tradition ornaments presided over a flock of hundreds of tiny bags full of candy awaiting their student giftees. 

Where Steve expected pitchforks and torches for the unlocked, especially after a lockdown and scaring Darcy’s friends half to death, there had been instead a baffling mix of support and exasperation. As hard as the school administration had pushed the community-helping-all-of-its-members spiel, Steve didn’t think they had really needed to. Everyone who cared about the danger more than the unlocked themselves had un-enrolled from Triskelion a long time ago. 

The whole attitude threw Steve off-balance, not in the least when Bucky had come up to him the day after the cafeteria was put out of commission and slapped him proprietarily across the back. Triskelion wasn’t just a magnet school for the unlocked themselves, but for students who wanted to work with the unlocked in a hundred different capacities upon graduation. Even with the breadth of opinions on Bruce’s meltdown, positive and negative alike, there were enough locked students glad that Bruce was himself again that Steve had been continually surprised and grateful all week. 

Bruce himself sat in one of the chairs nearest the refreshment’s table, hands between his knees and ugly scarf still wrapped firmly around his neck. The other students helping Pepper didn’t appear interested in spiking the punch and Steve had time to mosey over to the table and settle himself at Bruce’s side. 

“You okay?” he asked Bruce. 

The grimace Bruce gave him held a hint of self-mocking amusement. “Do you know how many times someone has asked me that since I got here? At least once for every person.” 

“We all worry,” Steve said, unapologetic. “I haven’t gotten to see you much.”

“I figured it was best,” Bruce said. He lifted one shoulder and fiddled with the tassels on his scarf. The thing was striped purple and green and carried all of the dropped stitches and flaws of a knitter’s first attempt at the handicraft. The wool never left his fingers for more than a second at a time. “Two near-disasters within two weeks is a new record. I haven’t been that volatile since I got here. I figured it was best to stay out of class.” 

Steve nodded along with the logic and offered, “I’m glad you decided to come.” 

“Well,” Bruce paused. He lifted the end of his scarf and smiled an odd little smile. “I was asked and I didn’t want to disappoint.” 

The two of them lapsed into silence to listen to the DJ play with his mix-and-fade equipment. Halfway through his first attempt to splice together Jingle-bell Rock and Wrecking Ball, Pepper stormed over and unplugged his setup. The shouting match that ensued was covered by the noise of the other students spilling into the space as the front doors opened. 

Bruce nodded at Pepper. “She shouldn’t have agreed to pay Wade. Janet would have done a better job and not tried to make our ears bleed just for lulz. He’s kind of a shit if he thinks he can get away with it.” 

Without knowing any of the people Bruce was referring to, Steve just nodded and grunted agreeably.

Another stretch of comfortable silence allowed them both to people-watch as singles and couples traipsed in wearing their winter finest. Bucky and Natasha strolled by arm in arm, dressed to the nines in a slinky black dress and a snappy suit, and Natasha let her eyes drift in Steve’s direction to give him a knowing stare. The last name change with her transfer to Triskelion hadn’t shown up in the dossiers Steve had memorized. He gave her a small salute that Bucky thought was for him and returned with a smug grin. Steve shook his head and let it slide. 

“So-” Bruce said. His words were small and awkward and Steve had to lean in to hear them at all. “I wanted to thank you. For putting yourself in danger when I lost control.” 

Steve paused for a moment before he said, “You don’t need to thank me? We unlocked need to stick together. What happened to you could… it could happen to any of us.”

“It just happens to me a lot and, well, I never really know if the others are on my side. Tony, yeah, but- even with me out of my mind, you were still on my side.” Bruce kept his voice low and confessional. “That’s what I saw, you know. In the vision.” 

“Oh.” Steve had no answer for that. Bruce was watching him expectantly. “You’re welcome.” 

Bruce relaxed. “And thanks for buying time for Tony to go get my new tranqs.” At Steve’s look of askance, Bruce said, “I’m not in the hospital, am I? Neither me or my crazy-ass magic wanted to get stuck by anything but my own concoction.”

Tony swept in from nowhere before Steve could formulate a reply. “I told you he was a chem wiz, didn’t I?” Tony said with a slap on Bruce’s back. “Biochem. He’s taking college courses and everything.” 

“Where you listening in on our conversation?” Steve asked, swiveling in his chair. “Need I remind you how rude that is?” 

“I had to know when to cut in, didn’t I? Bruce’s date just rolled in with Jane and Thor and I brought mints. No offense.” 

“None taken,” Bruce said. He bounced up from his chairs and onto his tiptoes in one motion to see above the heads of the students still clustered by the door. “You definitely saw her?” 

“These are for you.” Tony pressed a small rattling tin into Bruce’s hand. “Go get ‘em, tiger.” 

With one last grin at the two of them, Bruce scooted away toward the front doors and the coat check where a green and purple hat bobbed among the arrivals. The crowd was sparse. Not too many had decided that being on time to a school dance was all that crucial. 

Steve turned back to Tony with a smile and was rewarded by a mirroring grin that made his heart beat a little faster. Tonight, Tony wore a suit tailored to his trim form and it lent him a gravitas quickly belied by the expression on his face. His hair was spiked up, slick and dark from product, and he had his fingers tucked in his suit pockets. Somewhere in the background, Pepper had finally convinced the DJ to stop dicking around and play some actual dance music. Something faintly electronic with a danceable beat poured from the speakers onto the empty dance floor. 

“Why didn’t you say something?” Steve asked. He tried to keep the challenge out of his voice, driven more by curiosity than anything. “About what Bruce was saying. You didn’t mention he’d found a new formula.” 

“You gave me the minute I needed to go check that he’d succeeded,” Tony said. “It wasn’t a sure thing, and the reaction hadn’t finished when the fight started. We got lucky. Bruce would have to have had to wear himself out, which wasn’t going to happen with the spell Fury was holding keeping all that loose magic in for him to feed off. Bad news all around, if you ask me.” 

“We got lucky,” Steve repeated. He rubbed his hands against is knees to get rid of he nervous sweat prompted not by their topic of conversation but by how close Tony was sitting. “Except that Bruce didn’t squash you when he had a chance.”

Tony ruffled the hair on the back on his head and tipped his face ceiling-ward. “Well, no. I… don’t actually know why. Like I said, we got lucky.”

“Lucky,” Steve said again. He tucked his hands between his knees how Bruce had been sitting and hunched his shoulders. “Any of us could lose it like that. Because of a dropped spoon or something. Bruce was lucky that you were there and- that’s the nature of this whole unlocked thing and…

“That’s actually why I decided on joining the program,” Steve finished. 

“What?” Tony snapped his chin down and frowned at Steve. “Because any of us could blow a fuse at any time? I don’t think I like the sound of that reason. It’s not your job to keep us in line.” 

“No- not,” Steve made a frustrated noise. “I’m not best person for the job, but I just think… if there needs to be someone standing between you and the world, that someone’s going to be me.” 

There was bite in Tony’s voice when he said, “Because of what we’re capable of doing to the world.” 

Steve lifted his eyes to Tony’s and held his gaze. “Because of what the world is capable of doing to you.” 

It took a moment for Steve’s words to sink in, but when they did, Tony’s anger melted into thoughtful surprise. “Oh.” He paused for long enough that Steve thought he was going to argue. 

Steve braced himself, half-certain that he’d overstepped and that Tony would accuse him of delusions of grandeur. Better men than Steve had given him all of the reasons in the world that he shouldn’t risk his life for people who almost no one thought would reach adulthood intact, let alone become one. Just because Bruce seemed to get what Steve was trying to do didn’t mean that Tony would. 

But he _hoped_ Tony would. For all that he was reckless and careless and full of himself, Tony tried to catch Bruce each time he had fallen. Everything else aside, Tony’s heart was in the right place, and Steve needed him to understand.

When Tony spoke, however, Steve’s fears eased. Instead of arguing, he said, “I can get behind that. Wanna dance?”

Relief had Steve grinning up at Tony. “Sure. Anytime.” The double entendre only hit him after he’d replied and he could feel the tips of his ears heat in embarrassment at his ready response.

Tony’s smirk as offered his hand to help Steve up out of the chair told him that he wasn’t the only one to have caught the innuendo. About to grab Tony’s hand, Steve hesitated. 

“First time only,” Tony said with a wink, but there was a shadow over his expression. “Promise. Nothing to warn about after that.”

“Good to know.” Steve gripped Tony’s hand and unlike Steve’s damp palm it was warm and dry. Tony pulled Steve up and out of his chair with a grunt and dragged him out to the center of the cafeteria. 

They were the first ones out on the floor. Steve could see Pepper at one of the tables waving her arms at her minions and pointing back toward Steve and Tony. The space set aside in the middle of the cafeteria for dancing had been lined by poles that held up the string lights, and the moment they set foot on the scuffed wood they became the center of attention for everyone already there. Thor, hand-in-hand with Jane, wolf-whistled loud enough to make sure that anyone who hadn’t noticed Steve and Tony before couldn’t miss them now. 

The song was loud and rhythmic and Tony dropped Steve’s hand to break out into a mangled version of the twist. He waggled his shoulders from side to side and gestured for Steve to start making a spectacle of himself too. Steve gave in without fanfare, shuffling to the beat as best he could. Tony rocked out, shameless, and the awkwardness Steve felt faded with Tony’s encouraging eyebrow-wiggles. The rest of their friends trickled onto the floor in ones and twos. Tony’s jacket was unbuttoned, as was his collar, and Steve was struck again with curiosity. He tried to meet Tony’s eyes, but every time he did, they slid away.

Steve was panting by the time the song finished, not quite sure what he’d gotten himself into. It took him a moment to catch his breath and when he looked to Tony again, he found Tony holding his hand out with a small blinking device sitting in his palm. Steve reached for it, but Tony folded his fingers over the device before he could touch it. The two of them stood in the center of the dance floor as another cheerful club song pounded out of the speakers. The DJ bobbed along with the beat and their friends jostled them when neither started dancing again. 

“I didn’t warn you last time, so- this time I am. While Bruce was working on his new-and-improved knockout juice, I was working on this. Sort of as a better apology. I don’t even know if you want it, but- I wanted to at least give you the options.”

The source of Tony’s doubt became clear. Steve, feeling guilty that Tony was still stewing over something that had happened two weeks ago, said, “It’s- I forgive you. It’s forgotten, you don’t have-” 

“I like you,” Tony interrupted, his jaw set. His eyes met Steve’s. He looked away an instant later, directing his focus back down to the little thing in his palm. “So, I like you, and if you hold this it’ll let you shake hands with yourself.” 

Steve stared at Tony. “You can do that?” 

Tony offered Steve a wan smile. “Apparently. Just- I’m warning you. This is kind of what the unlocked see when they touch you for the first time. You, uh, might not want to know and I respect that.” The device rested on his bare skin. Steve swallowed hard. The image of a still-beating heart in a cracked ribcage lingered at the forefront of Steve’s thoughts.

He held out his hand, and a tingle of anticipation traveled down his spine. “I do. Want to know.” 

The device weighed no more than a can of soda, and Steve only felt the the cool metal sides covered with blinking bits against his skin for an instant before the vision began. 

The sensation of his magic bubbling up to meet a newcomer was familiar, but instead of giving him a view of the other person, it was like standing in front of a mirror with his hand sunk into the glass up to his wrist. He could see himself, only smaller, scrawnier, wearing a hat too big and too heavy for him to keep his head from wobbling. He looked younger, frailer, and while Steve remembered being scrawny, he really didn’t remember being _that_ scrawny. In the vision he was covered in bruises, his lip was split, but his jaw still jut forward and his expression remained determined. The vision flickered between his fists up and down, trying to reflect both reality and adapt to whatever tech Tony was using to force the vision. What struck Steve, though, is when his fists came up into a pugilist’s stance, he recognized it for one of wary defense. 

It was a memory. 

Steve dropped the device. Tony caught it with his toes before it hit the floor. He pocketed it before Steve could find his voice. “That’s what people see?” Steve asked. “A losing prizefighter with a chip on his shoulder?”

Tony stared at him. “That’s not what that was.” 

Flushing hot and cold and surrounded by too many people, Steve shook his head. He felt too exposed out in the middle of the dance floor, but he held his ground and took a series of steadying breaths. To his sides, Bucky and Natasha already danced together, and Darcy had shoved her friends out into a dance ring so that none of them could be accused to dancing with anyone else in particular. The heavy bass of the current song rewrote the beat of Steve’s heart into something steadier and less vulnerable. 

Steve could barely hear Tony of the music when he said, “I see a guy willing to take a hit so an innocent won’t have to.” 

Taking a deep breath, Steve nodded, and the music changed to the soft-rock pulse of ‘Lady in Red’. There was a collective groan from the dance floor. Someone shouted ‘really, Wade?’, but people began to pair off anyway, mostly. Pepper peeled Natasha away from Bucky, claiming it was her right as organizer to have the first dance while Natasha just laughed at the look on Bucky’s face. A girl Steve didn’t recognize held hands with Bruce as they swayed and smiled nervously at each other, and Loki decided to fuck the whole concept and wandered to the edge of the dance floor to drag two wallflowers from the punch table and teach them some sort of handsy three-person Asgardian dance that looked a lot like foreplay to Steve. He could see a tie-wearing Coulson at the edge of the floor who frowned at Loki as if deciding whether getting out the ‘six-inches-apart’ ruler would help or not. 

Tony tapped Steve on the shoulder and held out his hand. The music was cheesy, there was a draft coming in around the edges of the plywood on all of the windows, and there was still a hell of a lot of exhaustion written all over Tony’s face, but the lights above the dance floor looked a little like stars if you squinted and Steve wasn’t going to pass up a chance to be close to Tony. 

“I’m leading,” Tony told him, and they arranged themselves with Tony’s hands on Steve’s waist and Steve’s hand on Tony’s shoulders. It was simple, and nice, and they swayed to the wail of ‘lady in red’. Tony had flecks of perspiration on his upper lip, his movements growing looser the longer they wobbled together and nothing terrible happened. Steve flexed his fingers into the fabric that covered Tony’s upper arms. As far as dances went, it wasn’t much beyond rocking back and forth in a circle, but Steve couldn’t look away from Tony’s eyes. Tony gave Steve a slight smile and said, “Okay, maybe leading was a bit of an overstatement. If this were a waltz, though, I could show you a thing or two.” 

Steve smiled back. “I’d like that.” 

The delighted smile that lit Tony’s face gave Steve the warm sense of contentment. Tony followed the smile with an offhanded, almost shy, “I liked your sketchbook.” He continued before Steve could do more than ‘hm?’ in surprise. “I really did. It was hands, yeah, pages and pages of hands, but they were nice hands. I draft, right, and draw myself a lot of hands, but yours were top of the line. And I didn’t get to say that before. So. Good job.” 

Steve gave in to the impulse and leaned forward to kiss Tony. Their lips met and after Tony’s startlement faded, he kissed right back. It was a quick peck, nothing more, and Tony tasted like mint. The scruff he was trying to cultivate scratched at Steve’s lips as he pulled away. Whatever so-called dancing they had been doing ground to a halt and they watched each other wide-eyed for the length of an entire chorus. There were a few scattered claps from the edges of the room and one wolf-whistle from far closer that sounded like Thor (or perhaps Jane). Steve started to laugh. 

Tony pulled away and Steve only just managed to catch him before he broke away from the dance. Disgruntled, Tony asked, “What?” 

With an air of conspiracy, Steve leaned in and lowered his voice. “Next time let’s try without an audience.” 

The stare Tony gave him shifted gradually from incredulous to pleased. “I’d like that,” he teased Steve with his own words. The music faded into another wordless piece of club electronica and the other couples on the floor parted to make way for late arrivals to elbow their way in to dance. Tony released him after someone whose voice he couldn’t place shouted ‘Get it, Stark!’. His pleased smile dropped into a smirk once more. “Should I be taking suggestions from that lot for when and where?”

“No. After,” Steve promised. He could feel the back of his neck and cheeks heat. “Right after, you and me, and anywhere but here.”

Tony brightened and he held out his hand to lead Steve back to the punch bowl. “You’ve got to admit, though ‘Here’ is not so bad. If you’d never come here, you’d never have met me and then where would you be?”

As Steve let himself be led away from the press of their friends toward the ranks of little red plastic cups, he laughed. The room smelled like fresh paint, new carpet, and beneath that: the faint scent of wintergreen that lingered on his lips. His fingers tightened on Tony’s. “Then looks like I made the right decision after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> If you want to chat me up outside of Ao3, my fic tumblr can be found at [desiderii-fic](http://desiderii-fic.tumblr.com/) and my fic livejournal at [desiderii](http://desiderii.livejournal.com/)


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